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AN OUTLINE 



PUBLIC LIFE AND SERVICES 



THOMAS F. BAYARD, 

SENATOU OP THE UNITED STATES FUOM THE STATE OF DELAWARE, 
1860-1S80. 



WITH EXTRACTS FROM HIS SPEECHES AND THE DEBATES 
OF CONGRESS. 



EDWARD ISPENCER. 



?74l«^.t 



NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON" AND COMPANY, 

1, 3, AND 5 BOND STliEET. 
1880. 



r 



corvr.ioriT ht 
D. Al'l'LETON AND COMPAKY. 

ISSO. 



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THIS OUTLINE 
OF THE PUBLIC LIFE AND SERVICES 

OF 

THOMAS F. BAYARD 

IS DEDICATED TO 
THE YOUNG MEN OF THE UNITED STATES, 

THE LIVES OF THE FATHERS 

AEE OFTEN HELD UP TO THEM A8 EXAMPLES: 

THE LIFE OF ONE OF TIIEIR CONTEMPORARIES 

SHOWS 
HOW THOSE EXAMPLES SHOULD BE FOLLOWED. 



Self -reverence, Bclf-knowlcdgc, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power, 
Yet not for power (power of herself 
Would come uncalled for), but to live by law, 
Acting the law we live by without fear ; 
And because right is right, to follow right 
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. 

Tennyson : " Cl'luonc." 

[Quoted by Mr. Bayard iu hid Phi Beta Kappa Oration, Harvard Uni- 
versity, June 28, 1877.] 



OONTEInTTS 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 

Anckstry of Mr. Bayaud ....•• 1 

CnAPTEU II. 
Early Life of Mr. Bayard . . • • .13 

CHAPTER III. 
State of Politics— 18G9-"70 ..... 26 

CHAPTER IV. 
Outline of Mr. Bayard's Political Services ... 47 

CHAPTER V. 
Leading Questions. — Mr. Bayard's Views ... 67 

CHAPTER VL 
The Union and the Constitution . . . . • 80 

CHAPTER VII. 
Finance and the Currency . ... 101 

CHAPTER Vin. 

Tariff and Revenue Reform . . . • .133 



yi CONTEXTS. 

CllAriER IX. 

PACE 

"Tins IS A fJOTEUXMENT 01 L.wv.s" .... 159 

niAriER X. 
DrKE.N.sK or the Soi'tii ...... 185 

CIIAriER XI. 

ThF n.VTTI.E AGAINST Ce.STRALIZ.\TION . . . .212 

CHAPTER XII. 
Economy and RrronM in Government . . . .231 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Electoral Commission . . . .251 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Mr. Hayaud in the Senate ..... 273 



LIFE 



or 



THOMAS F. BAYARD 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCESTRY OF ME. BAYARD. 

The family to wliicli Mr. Bavard belongs is a numer- 
ous one, and its members are widely distributed in both 
the Old World and the New. Those who take an inter- 
est in antiquarian investigations have traced back its ori- 
gin to the province of Dauphine, now. the department 
of the Isere, in the southeast of France, where, about six 
leagues from Grenoble, the ruins of the Chateau Bayard, 
crowning a hill which commands one of the noblest pros- 
pects in that romantic region, mark what is regarded as 
the cradle of the race. From the earliest times the Bay- 
ards were distinguished for courage in war and fidelity 
to their sovereign. A Seigneur de Bayard, the head of 
the house, was slain at the battle of Poitiers in the vain 
attempt to prevent the capture of King John the Good 
by the English. His son fell in combat with the same 
enemy at Azincourt, and his grandson at Montlhery. 
But the second in descent from this last was more widely 
known than either, and, joining to the hereditary prowess 
and constancy of his race a purity and nobility of char- 



2 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ac'tcr peculiarly his own, has furnished to history and 
romance the ideal of a perfect knight. Pierre du Ter- 
rail, Seigneur de Bnyard,* " the knight without fear and 
without reproach," M-as the famous captain of Charles 
VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I, the latter of whom, 
after the battle of Marignano, M'ould receive the honor of 
knighthood from no hand but that of Baj^ard. In 1505 
he, single-handed, kept the bridge of the Garigliano 
against the Spaniards, and saved the whole French army. 
In the wars between Francis and the Emperor Charles 
V, he was the most trusted French leader, and fell by an 
arquebuse-shot while conducting the retreat at the pas- 
sage of the Sesia, April 30, 152i. As he left no heirs, his 
estates and rank descended to the next of kin, and the 
family name, Dii Terrail, was merged in the territorial 
name Bayard. 

Among the descendants of these Bayards were three 
brothers, Jacques, Thomas, and Philippe, who had em- 
braced the Reformed or Huguenot faith. During the 
jicrsecutions which followed the Massacre of St. Barthol- 
omew, they, with thousands of their fellow-believers, fled 
from France, and took refuge in Holland, where their de- 
scendants still exist. One of these, Samuel Bayard, early 
in the seventeenth century, married Anneke, or Anna, 

* Bayard was not married. Says Jean Cohen, his secretary : " Mais il 
eu avoir contract6 vcrbaleinent et par lettres I'engagement avcc une belle 
ot noble dumoi.sclle de la maison de Trttjue dans le Milanez, dc laquelle 11 
avoit cii une (illo naturclle, nomn)6c Jtanne Terrail, digne Clle du plus ver- 
tueux do touH les ptsres. Elle fut niariue, un an apres la nioit dc son 
pore, i Francois de Bocaozel, seigneur de Cliastelart." 

But llie records attesting this marriage exist in the church attached to 
tho CliAtoau Bayard, in Bauphiny, and were lately exhibited by the cur6 of 
tiie pariuli, then cu.stodian, to Miss Anderson, the daughter of the gallant 
(Jencral Bobert Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, and wlio is herself re- 
lated to the Bayards. 



ANCESTRY OF MR. BAYARD. 3 

daugliter of Balthj^zar Stuyvesant, and sister of Peter 
Stuyvesaiit, governor of New Amsterdam. Anna Bay- 
ard, being a widow at the time of lier brother's appoint- 
ment, with her tliree sons, Balthazar, NichoLas, and Pe- 
trus, and a daugliter, Catherine, embarked with him for 
the New World, landing at New Amsterdam, May 11, 
16 AT. From these three brothers all the Bayards in the 
United States are descended. 

Balthazar and Nicholas married in New Amsterdam, 
and their descendants are still living in New York.* 
Petrus, the youngest son, also married, established him- 
self in business as a hatter, and was on the road to sub- 
stantial prosperity, when an event occurred which changed 
the whole course of his life. This event was his meeting 
with Bankers and Sluyter, the Labadist emissaries or 
commissioners. 

As the story of the Labadist colony in America is 
comparatively little known, a few words about it may 
not be out of place. Jean de Labadie, a man of singular 
gifts and eloquence, a sort of Protestant Savonarola, with 
all the enthusiasm and mysticism and the power of sway- 
ing the people which distinguished the famous Florentine, 
had been a shining light of the Jesuit order, but quitted 
in discontent both it and the Church of Rome, and, after 
trying various forms of faith and finding none to his 
mind, resolved as a last resort to found a church of his 
own. He soon gathered about him a band of devoted 
followers. Their doctrines differed not greatly from 
those of the Dutch Reformed Church, but they laid claim 

* Balthazar married Maritjie Loockerman?, and left children who inter- 
married with the Jays and Stuyvesants. Nicholas was appointed Receirer- 
Gencral of the New Netherlands in lOTS. He was a strong opposer of the. 
seizure of power by Lcisler in 1689, and was imprisoned by order of the 
latter fur more than a year. 



4 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

to a iiiueli higher .<i»iritiialitj, and in some respects seem 
to have resembled the Moravians, in others the Shakers. 
Certain features of their discipline were so objectionable 
to the Dutch authorities that they were expelled from 
one town after another, until at last they found a quiet 
resting-place at Wiewerd, in Friesland. But here, too, 
they became straitened both for means and room, and so 
determined to plant a colony in America. 

Two of their leading members, Jasper Dankcrs and 
Peter Sluyter, were sent across the Atlantic on a tour of 
exploration, who, after various wanderings and adven- 
tures, pitched upon a tract of land in Cecil County, 
Maryland, between the Elk and Bohemia rivers, forming 
part of the great Bohemia Manor grant of Augustine 
Herrmann, the magnate of that region, and a conspicu- 
ous personage in the early history of Maryland. To this 
choice they were led partly by the fertility of the soil 
and mildness of the climate, but chiefly by the persua- 
sions of Ephraim Herrmann, son and heir of Augustine, 
of whom they had made a convert during their stay in 
New York, and avIio made them lavish promises of land if 
they would plant their proposed colony within liis fa- 
thole's territory. 

The iM-ORiiect seeming an inviting one to the mother- 
church in Friesland, Dankers and Sluyter were sent out 
again to found the settlement as proposed. Ephraim 
was as good as liis word ; and through his influence a 
tract t)f land between the Elk and Bohemia rivers, and 
containing about 3,750 acres, was conveyed in August, 
1(>S4, to Dankors, Sluyter, and three others, one of whom 
waH Pctrus P.ayard. 

PctruB, like Ej)hraim, had been made a convert by the 
missionaries during their stay in New York, and he now 



ANCESTRY OF Mil. BAYARD. 5 

resolved to renounce his prospects there, and cast his lot 
with the Labadists. He was naturalized by the Maryland 
Assembly on September 26, 1681, and appears to have 
passed nearly all the rest of his life in the community. 
The Labadists left no annals or records by which tlieir 
history can be traced after this settlement ; but Petrus is 
favorably mentioned by name in the sketch of the colony 
published in 1692 by Dittelbach, a deserter from the sect, 
who speaks in strong terms of the arbitrary and oppres- 
sive rule of Sluyter and his wife. In 1688 the parent- 
church at "VViewerd was dissolved, and the property di- 
vided among the members ; and ten years later the same 
course was taken by the community at Bohemia Manor. 
In July, 1698, a partition of the land took place, Samuel 
Bayard, the eldest son of Petrus, receiving a considerable 
tract as his share. Petrus himself had probably by this 
time withdrawn from the community, as he died in New 
York in 1699. Sluyter reserved the lion's share of the 
land for himself, and kept up some semblance of a church 
for several years, but at his death the sect became extinct 
in Maryland, and the remains of the mother-church in 
Friesland ceased to exist at about the same time. 

Of Samuel, the son of Petrus (or Peter, as he was 
called after his naturalization in Maryland), we have but 
little record. He seems to have lived on his Bohemia 
Manor farm in the ease and abundance which character- 
ized the open-handed life of tlie Maryland country gentle- 
man of those times. Luxuries were rarer then in the 
colony than they were fifty years later, and rarer still in 
those far up-country plantations ; but the soil, the forest, 
and the water furnished plenty for all and for all comers ; 
and Samuel, among his neighbors, passed for a rich man. 
He built himself a large brick house, in which he and his 



6 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

descendants lived till 1789, lie died in 1721, leaving 
tln-ce sons, Samuel, Peter, and James, and one daughter, 
Mary Anne. 

James, the third son, married Mary Asheton, of Vir- 
ginia, and of this marringe were born two sons, John and 
James Asheton. John Ijajard lived in Philadelphia, and 
took an active part on the patriotic side at the outbreak 
of the Revolution. He was chairman of the Committee 
of Inspection for the county of Philadelphia, and Bancroft 
pronounces him '• a patriot of singular purity of character 
and disinterestedness ; personally brave, pensive, earnest, 
and devout." * 

His brother, James Asheton Bayard, died in 17G0, 
leaving two sons, John, and James Asheton the second, 
the latter an inftint but two years old. John Bayard held 
the rank of colonel in the American army during the war 
of the Itcvolution, in which he distinguished himself by 
his courage and conduct. lie commanded the artillery at 
the battle of Brandywine. 

James Asheton Bayard, the second, was born in Phila- 
delphia, but, after his graduation at Princeton College, 
removed to Delaware, where he married Anne, daughter 
of Governor Richard Bassett.f His talents and character 
soon won for liim the esteem of liis fellow citizens, who 
shortly after he had attained his majority elected him one 
t >f their representatives in Congress. Here he soon showed 
his abilitv as chairman of the committee that conducted 



* " History of the United States," viii, 385. 

■f Jiiillth IJasiSftf, till- inothcr of Govc-rnor I^assctt, was a niece of Avii^us- 
tino lltTniinnn, and in this way the original Hohcmia Manor house came into 
tlio Hayard family. Ha.st<ett liatl .sirveil with distinction in tiie Revolutionary 

war, and co landcd a troop of lij/ht horse, which was uttathcd to Washin"- 

ton's lieadiiuiirlers at the lime uf .\rnold's treason. 



ANCESTRY OF MK. BAYARD. 7 

the iiiipeaclimeiit of Senator Blount, and particularly dis- 
tinguished himself by his statesmanlike treatment of the 
difficult constitutional questions that arose during the pro- 
gress of that important case. President Adams, who had 
from the first noted Mr. Bayard's ability, nominated him 
as Minister to France. The nomination was confirmed 
by the Senate, and he was commissioned, but declined the 
appointment. His reasons for this are stated in a charac- 
teristic letter : 

" Washington, February 22, 1801. 

"... You are right in your conjecture as to the office offered 
me. I have since been nominated Minister ta France, concurred in 
nem con., commissioned, and resigned. Under proper circumstances, 
the acceptance would have been complete gratification ; but, under 
tlie existing, I thought the resignation most honorable. To have 
taken $18,000 out of the public treasury, with a knowledge that no 
service could be rendered by me, as the French Government would 
have waited for a man who represented the existing feelings and 
views of this Government, would have been disgraceful. 

"Another consideration of great weight arose from the part I 
took in the Presidential election. As I had given the turn to the 
election, it was impossible for me to accept an office which would 
be held on the tenure of Mr. Jefferson's pleasure. My ambition 
shall never be gratified at the expense of a suspicion. 

" I shall never lose sight of the motto of the great original of our 
name." 

In the House he was one of the leaders of the Federal 
party ; but, far from being a violent partisan, he was con- 
spicuous for wise moderation, forbearance, and constant 
recognition of the great truth, so often forgotten, that 
parties are not ends in themselves, but only means to an 
end ; and he never hesitated between the success of his 
party and the welfare of his country. This he signally 
displayed in the memorable contest between Jefferson 



8 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and JluiT, wliere, perceiving tluit the peace of the country 
was in danf::er, he i)revailed upon his poHtical alKes to 
saci-ifice their party preferences for the general good. 

After serving in the House for two terms "vvith an 
abihty, integrity, and patriotism tliat won the admiration 
of his political opponents, he was elected to the Senate. 
In 1812 he was selected by President Madison as one of 
the commissioners to treat for peace with Great Britain, 
and it was largely due to his firmness and tact that the 
treaty of Ghent was signed. While still in Europe he 
was cliosen by the President as envoy to St. Petersburg, 
but, being seized with a mortal illness, returned to Amer- 
ica only to die. 

lie died in August, 1815, leaving four sons: Pichard 
II., James Asheton, Edward, and Henry M. Bayard, and 
two daughters. 

Ilichard, the eldest son, was the first mayor of Wil- 
mington. He afterward twice* represented Delaware in 
the United States Senate, from 183C to 1839, and from 
1841 to 1845, and was Minister to Belgium from 1849 to 
1852. 

James Asheton, the second son, also represented his 
native State in the Senate, to which body he was elected 
in 1850, 1850, and 18G2. This remarkable proof of the 
abiding confidence of his fellow citizens was not obtained 
by any of the arts of the demagogue, which he despised 
so licartily as almost to err on the other side. He was a 
consistent constitutional Democrat throughout, devotedly 
attached to the Union and the Constitution, in his fidelity 
to wln'ch he never swerved ; though those who were ready 
to sliift their ])Osition with e\ery j)hase of party exigency, 
or who licld, with Senator Morton, that "definitions ad- 
vance," in measuring his distance from the now idols 



ANCESTRY OF MR. BAYARD. 

which they had set up, imagined that he liad moved be- 
cause they had tlicmselves drifted. 

The tics which bound Delaware to her sister States of 
the South were strong and close, and there were not want- 
ing fiery spirits who would gladly have seen the State 
swept away on the wave of the secession movement, had 
not her wisest and most trusted leaders resisted it to the 
utmost. The whole influence and constant teaching of 
the Bayards, father and son, were at all times strongly in 
favor of the Union, and in opposition to secession. The 
action of the Delaware Legislature in promptly reject- 
ing the proposition of the Mississippi commissioner to 
induce Delaware to join the new confederacy was wholly 
in accord wdth their views and earnest counsels. In 
fact, the only disunion sentiments ever uttered in Dela- 
ware were heard from the ranks of their political and per- 
sonal opponents ; and such sentiments never found favor 
in the heart of that ancient and patriotic little common- 
wealth. 

As a lawyer he stood in the first rank; and it is 
liardly an exaggeration to say that his was, perhaps, the 
finest legal mind that Delaware, in her long line of emi- 
nent lawyers, had ever produced. His great strength lay 
in the depth and singular clearness of his intellect. He 
possessed but few of the graces of popular oratory, and 
none of the arts that win popularity ; indeed, what gave 
him eminence as a lawyer was perhaps somewhat inju- 
i-ious to him as a pleader and public speaker. He was 
apt to forget his hearers and the impression he was mak- 
ing or desired to make upon them, and, following closely 
the line of thought once started, was utterly, and some- 
times amusingly, forgetful of the passage of time, and un- 
conscious of what was going on around him. 



10 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

This habit of absorbing thought made him sometimes 
absent-minded to an extent which often surprised, and 
even annoyed, those wlio did not know his peculiarities. 
He "would pass acquaintances and even intimate friends 
on the street without a sign of recognition, and by this 
apparent discourtesy often gave serious offense, until the 
cause was explained. Being, however, a man of remark- 
able simplicity and frankness of character, wholly free 
from affectation or insincerity, he had the thorough con- 
fidence of all who knew him. Spotless integrity, and a 
lofty independence and straightforwardness that despised 
all subterfuges, finesse, and crooked ways to ends how- 
ever desirable, marked his whole career, professional, po- 
litical, and social. 

Kot only did these qualities secure him the unbroken 
confidence of his friends and political allies, as was testi- 
fied by his re-elections to the Senate, but they were can- 
didly admitted by his political opponents, who more than 
once paid manly tributes to his worth. An instance of 
this occurred in the wretched business of the Credit 
Mobilier, from which more than one once fair reputation 
issued sadly besmirched. In their report to the House of 
Representatives, the Hepublican committee of investiga- 
tion, after reflecting severely upon the conduct ~.of some 
of their associates, remarked : " We commend to them, 
and to all men, the letter of the venerable Senator Bay- 
ard, in response to an offer of some of this stock." The 
letter referred to was written in 1868, before the tnie 
character of that complex web of fraud had been ex- 
posed, and in it Mr, Bayard had said : " I take it for 
granted that the corporaHon has no application to make 
to Congress on wliicli I shall be called upon to act official- 
ly, as 1 could not, consistently with my views of duty. 



ANCESTRY OF MR. BAYARD. H 

vote upon a question in wliicli I had a pecuniary in- 
terest." 

It is almost superfluous to add that while the investi- 
gation was in progress, and no one could say on whom 
next the plague-spot of corruption would be detected, no 
friend of Senator Bayard felt a moment's uneasiness lest 
he should for one weak moment have dallied with the 
temptation. 

Mr. Bayard entered political life as a Democrat, and 
was a candidate for Congress in 1828 as a " Jackson man." 
From the constitutional principles of that party he has 
never wavered, nor shrunk from the open avowal of his 
convictions, in war or in peace. Under the administra- 
tion of Van Buren he held the position of United States 
Attorney for Delaware. His three terms in the Senate 
have already been mentioned. 

When, after his election to the Senate in 18G2, the 
unconstitutional " iron-clad " oath was offered to him, 
the statesman who had grown gray in his country's ser- 
vice, he felt it as an insult as well as an outrage. After 
an impressive argument and protest, he took the oath, 
and resigned his seat. Mr. George R. Biddle was then 
elected to fill the vacancy, but, this gentleman dying not 
long after, Mr. Bayard was prevailed upon to return and 
serve out the unexpired term resulting from his own 
resignation. 

While in the Senate he filled many important posi- 
tions, and on the death of Judge Butler, of South Caro- 
lina, became the chairman of the Committee on the 
Judiciary. His reports and arguments upon constitu- 
tional questions always had great weight, and are still 
cited as authority. 

On the same day on which Mr. Bayard was elected to 



12 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

fill his own unexpired term, his son, Thomas F. Bayard, 
was also elected for the full succeeding term; and on 
March 4, 1SG9, both father and son were senators, the 
term of the latter beginning at noon of the day when that 
of the former expired. 

Since his retirement Mr. Bayard has lived, with his 
family, in Wilmington, where he still survives at the age 
of eighty-one, much enfeebled in body, but cheered by 
the knowledge that his place is filled by no unworthy 
successor to his name, his honors, and his principles. 



CHAPTER II. 

EARLY LIFE OF ME. BAYARD. 

Thomas Francis Bayard, tlie second and only snr- 
viving son of James Aslieton Bayard and Anne Francis,* 
was born in Wilmington, Delaware, October 29, 1828. 

His great-grandfather, Richard Bassett, had joined 
the Methodist Church under the ministration of Bishop 
Francis Asbury, and his houses in Dover, Wilmington, 
and Bohemia Manor were always the homes of the itine- 
rant ministers of that denomination. Mr. Bassett was, in 
various ways, a leading member of that church, and its 
historian has had frequent occasion to mention him in 
terms of gratitude and eulogy.f His descendants con- 
tinued the hospitable practice of entertaining at their 
homes the ministers during the conference; and the 
venerable Ezekiel Cooper always made his home in Wil- 
mington at the house of James A. Bayard. Born of a 
family connected with Methodism almost from its estab- 
lishment in this country, Thomas Francis Bayard received 
the rite of Christian baptism in that church. 

Young Bayard's boyhood was spent in Delaware until 
he reached the age of thirteen, when he went to the 

* Granddaughter of Captain Tench Francis, of Philadelphia, who was 
captain of a troop in the American forces in the Eevolution. 

f Stevens, "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," i, 316-318; 
iii, 405 ; iv, 502. 



14 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

scliool of Dr. Francis L. Hawks, at Flusliing, on Long 
Island, a clergyman distinguished for his literary attain- 
ments as well as ripe scholarship, with whom he remained 
until the establishment was broken up. 

His father removed to New York in 1843, as a wider 
iield for the practice of his profession — the law — where 
also he had a daughter married to August Van Cortlandt 
Schermerhorn. This lady, however, dying, and Mr. Bay- 
ard's health beginning to fail, he returned to Delaware. 
During the residence of his father in New York, young 
Bayard entered the mercantile house of his brother-in- 
law, Mr. Schermerhorn, and, applying himself to his du- 
ties with zeal and intelligence, laid the foundation of that 
sound and thorough knowledge of business and that clear, 
practical grasp of all subjects connected with trade and 
finance which have been so marked a feature in his ca- 
reer as a statesman. His business training was afterward 
continued in the house of S. Morris Wain, in Philadel- 
phia, where he remained until he reached the age of 
twenty. 

At this time the death of his elder and only brother 
drew him back to his parents in Delaware, where he 
entered upon the study of the law, and was admitted to 
the bar in 1851, assisting his father in his practice. 

An incident of this period of his life has been re- 
lated to us by a personal friend, in whose words we relate 
it : " When Mr. Bayard was a young man, and not trou- 
bled with a great number of cases, he was called upon to 
defend a young employee in one of the machine shops 
who had been accused of stealing tools. Mr. Bayard was 
succcfisful in his defense, and the young man was acquit- 
ted. In consideration of his services, the apprentices and 
others working in the shop made up a sum of money by 



EARLY LIFE OF MR. BAYARD. 15 

general subscription, and brought it to Mr. Bayard, who 
refused to take it, telling them to give the money to the 
young man, who would need it to help him to set up for 
himself and make a start in life. They did so ; and to- 
day that man is a respectable citizen of "Wilmington, 
owning a small homestead, and quite prosperous in busi- 
ness." 

Young as he was, Mr. Bayard's marked abihty was 
promptly recognized, and in 1853 he was appointed 
United States Attorney for Delaware, but resigned the 
office in 1854. Some of his friends jocosely said, in allu- 
sion to his father's high reputation, that " Tom didn't 
like to hear it said, whenever the firm won a suit, ' Oh, 
that's the old man.' He wanted to go where he could 
get the credit of what he did." However this may have 
been, after resigning the attorneyship, he removed to 
Philadelphia, and associated himself in legal practice with 
his friend William Shippen. 

Here he remained until 1858, when, Mr. Shippen dy- 
ing and Mr. Bayard's father being much occupied with 
the duties of his public office, he returned to Wilmington, 
and devoted himself laboriously to his profession, in 
which he rapidly attained eminence. 

Besides his regular professional business, his ability 
and character caused him to be selected by many of his 
numerous kindred for trusts, executorships, and the man- 
agement of involved estates ; and in this way a great 
mass of business which he could not delegate to others 
has been thrown upon him. Both before and after his 
entrance upon public life, he has been one of the hardest- 
worked of hard-worked men. 

Early in 1861, when war was seen to be imminent, and 
no one could tell what perils or troubles were ahead, the 



10 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

people of Wilmington, like those of most towns at or 
near the border, began devising means for self-protection 
in case of any disorders. The old militia laws had fallen 
into disuse, and there was really no military arm to sup- 
port the civil authority in case of any necessity. A mili- 
tia company was therefore organized under the law, with 
Mr. W. Thatcher as captain, and Mr. Bayard as first lieu- 
tenant. Some time later it virtually ceased to exist, so 
large a number of its members having enlisted into the 
United States Array as to make it not worth while to 
continue the organization, though it was never dis- 
banded. During the excited times which followed, an 
officer of the Federal army, whose zeal outran his discre- 
tion, demanded the arms of the company, which Mr. 
Bayard refused to surrender without an order from Gen. 
Da Pont, commanding the militia of Delaware, or from 
the Governor of the State, as the muskets were the State's 
property. The ofiicer broke open the door of the ar- 
mory and carried oil the muskets, and the United States 
Government afterward paid the State of Delaware for 
them. The matter M'ould not be worth mentioning, had 
it not given rise long after to a silly story that Mr. Bay- 
ard was once " captain of a rebel company." 

In June, 1801, while hopes were still entertained by 
many of a peaceful accommodation, a peace meeting of 
citizens, w'ithout distinction of party, was held in Dover. 
Mr. Bayard was one of the speakers. While some of those 
who spoke were passionate in their remarks, he was calm 
and temperate. He reminded his hearers that " with this 
secession, or revolution, or rebellion, or by whatever name 
it may be called, the State of Delaware has naught to do. 
To our constitutional duties toward each and every member 
of this Union we have been faithful in all times. Never 



EAKLY LIFE OF MR. BAYARD. 17 

has a word, a thought, an act of ours, been unfaithful to 
the Union of our fathers ; in letter and in spirit it has 
been foithfiilly kept by us." 

But he adverted to the horrors of a fratricidal war on 
so gigantic a scale, the ruin that would be wrought, and 
the danger that, whatever might be the issue, which no 
man then could certainly foresee, constitutional liberty 
might perish in the struggle. Better, he thought, " while 
deeply deploring the revolution which has severed eleven 
States from the Union," if a peaceful accommodation 
was impossible, that the discontented States should be 
allowed to withdraw than run the awful risk of such a 
war. His calm and earnest eloquence had great weight, 
and the meeting resolved " that there was no necessity for 
convening the Legislature." 

This speech, it was alleged by many, saved Delaware 
from secession. Whether this was so or not, it certainly 
calmed down a state of excitement in which some unwise 
action might have been taken. "It brought to men's 
minds," as a leading Delawarian said, " the fact that they 
were in the Union — had no part in the rebellion, and that 
it was their duty to remain as they were, and keep Dela- 
ware as one of the United States.'* In this, as ever, he 
approved himself faithful to the Constitution and the 
Union under it, his devotion to which has never wavered, 
as witness his public record, from first to last. 

There was, it is true, a secession speech made at that 
meeting (at least, such is the statement of a newspaper), 
but it was made by a gentleman now an office-holder of 
the Republican party. ISTor do we mean to imply that 
tliis gentleman was insincere either then or now" : it was a 
time when many men were thrown off their balance, and 
vicw^ed things distorted under the all-prevailing excite- 



18 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ment. Not all had tlic calm, steady mind that stood like 
a rock amid the storm. 

Though always much interested in political matters, 
he had scarcely taken any prominent part in them until 
his election to succeed his father in the Senate, as has 
been already mentioned. At once he became one of the 
most active and laborious members of that body. Of 
course, the small conservative minority could do little in 
controlling legislation, but there was much effective work 
he could do on committees ; and, on matters not of a party 
character, his voice was often heard with effect, as it al- 
ways was with attention. His moderation, urbanity, dig- 
nity of manner, and personal character won him the es- 
teem of his political opponents ; and even the overbear- 
ing Morton and passionate Logan treated him with re- 
spect. They recognized in him an antagonist that always 
fought fair ; that never willfully misrepresented an oppo- 
nent, never lost his temper, and never struck a foul blow. 
And his earnest presentation of facts, his manly appeals 
to their better judgment, often carried more weight than 
the most fiery and vehement eloquence could have done. 
And as he would not condescend to tricks in debate, so 
he earnestly opposed all irregular strategy in party action, 
such as placing political riders on appropriation bills, de- 
feating objecticjuable legislation by withholding supplies 
from any department of the Government, and similar in- 
direct tactics. 

Notwithstanding his robust frame, the excessive labor 
he has undergone has sometimes taxed him to the utmost, 
and in 1872 he was quite broken down by hard work on 
the New York Custom-IIouse and Southern committees 
of investigation. However, he won a great triumph in 
the repeal of the moiety laws, and those permitting the 



EARLY LIFE OF MR. BAYARD. JQ 

seizure of merchants' books and papers under " general 
warrant " ; for, at that time, the Democrats had but fif- 
teen votes in the Senate, and not only the custom-house 
officers but the whole administration bitterly opposed the 
repeal. — 

In 18Y5, when President Grant was urging the pas- 
sage of the " force bills," and a struggle of sheer endur- 
ance in debate was imminent, as it was evident the revo- 
lutionary programme could only be defeated by steady 
and prolonged resistance, Mr. Bayard, in his absence, was 
chosen by his associates as their leader in the coming 
contest. 

In the year 1877 he received the honorary degree of 
LL. D. of Harvard College, and delivered an eloquent 
address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, of which he 
is an honorary member, the subject being " Unwritten 
Law." Indeed, so general has been the admiration of 
his character among young men, who are so quick to 
recognize true chivalry, that he has been made honor- 
ary member of nearly haK the literary societies in the 
country. 

In the Senate he is now Chairman of the Committee 
on Finance, and member of the Committee on the Ju- 
diciary. 

On November 11, 1879, on the occasion of his return 
from Europe, he was welcomed by his fellow citizens 
with a public reception, which called together perhaps 
the largest assemblage ever collected in Wilmington. Men 
of all parties joined in welcoming him, and testifying 
their personal respect and their appreciation of his ser- 
vices to his country. He made a brief address, full of 
feeling and gratitude, such as the occasion and circum- 
stances might well excite. " This," he said, " is the tovni 
2 



20 MFK OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

where I was Lorn, as was my father before me ; and in 
tliis room is many a face well known to me from child- 
liood. In full view of those who now surround me, my 
life has been lived, and my incomings and outgoings all 
known. When, therefore, the judgment of such a court 
comes to he passed after a full half century of trial and 
experience in private life and in public service, and it is 
rendered in sentences so full of generous approbation, af- 
fection, and respect as your worthy and venerable chair- 
man [Dr. L. r. Bush] has addressed to me, what must be 
my emotions, and how full to overflowing my cup of 
blessings and of honor ! " 

After adverting to what he had observed in Europe, 
he contrasts that country with this, not to make the 
usual vainglorious boast, but to draw a lesson of ad- 
monition. 

" This summer I have been looking across the Atlantic, 
thinking of the country I could not see ; contrasting what 
I did see of the daily lives of men and women in other 
lands with that of my own, and when so often I heard 
' Labor with a groan and not a voice,' and realized the 
abuses and injustice of class privilege, whereby the bar of 
humble birth was kept and fastened on men from the 
cradle to the grave, I turned, as if for i)urer air, to the 
American States, where the noble crpiities of humanity 
are acknowledged and respected, and where the one 
great essential equality, the equality of opportunity, is 
secured to all. And experience and reflection, with 
increased opportunities for comparison with other coun- 
tries ajid systems of government, bring me only to a 
higher a])preciation of the generosity, justice, and moral 
grandeur of the ju'inciples upon which our own was 
b>un<lc(l. 



EARLY LIFE OF MR. BAYARD. 21 

" But mj admiration for our system of government 
was accompanied by an apprehensive realization of the 
conditions under whicli only it can be practically and 
permanently maintained. 

" And the conviction grows stronger and clearer daily 
that such a government can only be maintained by the 
exercise and employment of the higher and better qual- 
ities of human nature. 

" It is a government of laws emanating from popular 
will, but that will must be for honest and worthy ends, 
accomplished by honorable means. It is controlled by 
public opinion, but that opinion must be the intelligent 
result of knowledge carefully acquired, and dehberatlon, 
and not the unstable froth of tumult and gusty passion. 
And, to make public principles secure, they must be en- 
grafted on private honor ; the wishes of an intelligent and 
upright constituency must be reflected by intelligent and 
upright representatives. 

" A faithful representative should rather displease 
his constituents than consent to that which injures them. 
It is his duty fully and freely to account to them, but 
not to conceal his true opinions for fear of their dis- 
pleasure, for his enlightened conscience can not be dis- 
regarded without injury to them and his entire loss of 
usefulness. 

" To maintain this government of ours, such are some 
of the conditions, and it is upon the self-protecting ele- 
ments of society that we must rely." 

In October, 1856, Mr. Bayard married Louisa, daugh- 
ter of Josiah Lee, a well-known banker of Baltimore, and 
has three sons and six daughters living. 

In his family Kfe Mr. Bayard is exceedingly plain and 



22 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

domestic, living in sunnucr in Wilmington, and in Wasli- 
ington in the winter. 

A newspaper correspondent thus describes his home, 
and, in part, the host : " His summer home is a fine old- 
fashioned mansion, situated in the outskirts of Wilming- 
ton (on Clayton Street), which was once the property of 
iS 13. Davis, the guardian of Myra Clark, now known to 
fame as Myra Clark Gaines. It is a roomy house, fur- 
nished with a view solely to comfortable living. Mr, 
Bayard's ' den,' or library, has all the marks of the work- 
ing room of a man of literary tastes. The walls are lined 
with book-shelves, and the table is always covered with 
books and papers, which are confusion itself to anybody 
but himself. The floor, too, is strewed with books and 
newspapers. The visitor always finds the host at work, 
but never too busy to talk. For Tom Bayard is not only 
the soul of hospitality, but one of the most fluent talkers 
you ever saw. When he gets very much interested, he 
is apt to walk up and down the room vaili his hands in 
his pockets and indulge in a monologue. His words flow 
like water from the mouth of a pitcher, and if taken 
down in shorthand they will be found to make perfect 
sentences and notable for the display of a rich vocabulary. 

'' No one is more popular in Washington society than 
Mr. Bayard, and, adding to his genial, manly qualities a 
thorough acquaintance with French, he is one of the 
nio.,t sought-after of our public men at the dinners and 
receptions of the diplomatists who make theii- residence 
here. He lives, however, the life of a very simple re- 
j)uljlican gentleman, with good taste and unostentatious- 
ly. He gives his hospitality to his friends, and never 
turns his home into a place for the intrusion of vulgar pol- 
itics, where he may advance his interests l)y entertaining 



EARLY LIFE OF MR. BAYARD. 23 

a horde of people in whom he has no interest save as they 
may advance In's own." 

Yet Mr. Bayard is not one of those expansive souls 
who open every chamber of their hearts to every comer. 
There is a delicate reserve about him, a sort of shrinking 
from anything like effusiveness, which has been some- 
times mistaken for pride. This quahty is well character- 
ized in a private letter from a gentleman, eminent for his 
knowledge of men and fine reading of character, who has 
known him for twenty-five years, and who had been ap- 
plied to by the writer for some personal reminiscences. 

" Our ideas and feelings," he writes, " not to say fan- 
cies, have run a great deal in the same grooves, and there 
has been a sort of raiyi^ort between us, which has been 
established, naturally enough, no doubt, but I can hardly 
tell you how. Pie is very fond of poetry, and very much 
alive to its influences in all ways. His sensibilities arc 
quick ; his feelings are tender ; he has a great deal of 
sentiment, and before he took to finance and statesman- 
ship in general was of a decidedly imaginative turn. In 
social and private life he is absolutely simple, natural, and 
unaffected, with a boyishness that would be boyish, if it 
were not, like everything else in his character, thoroughly 
manly. It is very, very attractive to me, that perfect 
genuineness of life, thought, and conversation, in any 
man who has seen the world and knows it ; but in a pub- 
lic man, who has breathed the malarious air of the cap- 
ital for so many years, with all its moral sinks and uii- 
drained political sewers, it is positively marvelous. 

" But all this is talk, which you have more than 
enough of. I have not one reminiscence to give you ; 
nor do I believe you can get many from those who know 
Bayard best and see him most. lie belongs to that thor- 



21, LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

oughly healthy class who exhibit no symptoms — miich 
less phenomena. You would not notice a manly, or kind, 
or gentle thing in him, because you associate the idea of 
notliing elfrC with him. If I wanted liim to try a case 
for a poor client for nothing, and do his best, I would 
send the case to him without asking, and he would do it 
as a matter of course. He lives his life so naturally that 
you can not write it unless you write the whole of it." 

But, if we have failed to depict the character of Mr. 
Bayard, we can at least give his own idea of what an 
American statesman should be, as told in his speech be- 
fore the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and leave those who 
know him to judge how far his own life corresponds to 
his ideal. 

" It is in our power to create a standard of American 
character and manhood as lofty as that of any age or 
nation, and to compel our representatives at home and 
abroad to conform their conduct to it. 

" The spirit of true chivalry in all its gentleness and 
unselfislmess, showing tenderness to the feeble and resist- 
ance to the overbearing, mercy to whom mercy is due, 
and honor to whom honor, can and docs exist in America 
to-day, under the ' hodden gray ' of the laborer and me- 
clianif, the threadbare coat of the clerk, or the grave garb 
of the hard-worked merchant or man of the professions 
as truly as it ever did under the helmet and chain-armor 
of any knight-errant in the olden time. 

" Tlic American people can justly demand from those 
w ho lire delegated to represent them abroad or at home a 
punctilious observance of honor and delicate pride in 
llieir ])rivate and public conduct, and the moral influence 
to be obtained by dignified self-respect, intelligence, and 
liigh jjcrsonal integrity will far .outweigh any attempted 



EARLY LIFE OF MR. BAYARD. 25 

competition with the show and ghttcr of the representa- 
tives of other governments, not based upon the principle 
of vohmtarj and orderly self-control." 

And we may close this chapter with the closing words 
of his address to the students of the University of Yir- 
ginia, as the echo of the inmost feeling of his nature : 

" Who misses or who wins tlie prize, 
Go, lose or conquer as you can ; 
But if you fall, or if you rise. 

Be each, pray God, a gentleman." 



CHAPTER III. 

STATE OF POLITICS. — 18C9-'70. 

Thomas Fkancis Bayard entered the Senate of the 
United States at the first session of the Forty-first Con- 
gress, lie came into public life at the same time that 
General Grant first took the presidency. The Presiden- 
tial election of the preceding year had been a most excit- 
ing one, because so many conflicting hopes were risked 
upon it. One side of those whose political convictions 
were ardent and active thought that all that had been ac- 
complished during and since the civil war was staked 
upon the result ; the other side conceived that it involved 
the safety of all that remained of constitutional govern- 
ment. Proba])ly much the larger majority of voters did 
not hold either of these . admittedly partisan views, but 
they were tired and worn out with the excitements and 
evil effects of a long and violent struggle, which, after the 
losses and bloodshed of four years of frightful strife, had 
been continued during four more years upon the floors of 
Congress. They wanted a settlement, scarcely earing 
upon what terms it was made, so that it was conclusive 
and ])romiscd to be final. They wanted civil peace as 
well as military truce ; they wanted a restoration of social 
harmony, and a permanent renewal of general business on 
the biisis of iiscal reform and financial regeneration. 

The canvass of lbG8 was made l)y the Democratic 



STATE OF POLITICS.— lSG9-'70. 27 

party under the leadership of Horatio Seymour, of Now 
York, a statesman whose ability and patriotism were con- 
ceded even by those who were inclined to deplore his ir- 
resoluteness, not to say vacillation, in making up his mind 
to action ; but his force, his popularity, and his winning 
eloquence were heavily handicapped by the widespread 
mistrust inspired by the nomination of Francis P. Blair, 
Jr., as the second person on the ticket — a mistrust which 
ripened into open revolt after the publication of General 
Blair's " Brodhead letter," practically asserting his belief 
that the constitutional amendments had no validity. The 
platform on which Mr. Seymour, an avowed " hard-mon- 
ey man," had been nominated, was utterly sophisticated 
and made distasteful to the business community by hav- 
ing injected into it the greenback heresies of the Ohio 
politicians. On the other hand, both the candidates and 
the platform of the Eepublicans were strong and positive. 
Those who objected to the latter had at least the satisfac- 
tion of understanding it. It pledged the party and the 
candidates under it to the enforcement of the constitu- 
tional amendments. It favored the resumption of specie 
payments and the inviolability of the public debt. The 
candidate for the vice-presidency on this ticket was 
Schuyler Colfax, an active and popular politician, the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, whose hopes of 
a career had not yet been blighted by the disclosure of 
his connection with the Pacific Railroad Credit Mobilier. 
Ulysses S. Grant, the nominee for the presidency, was 
stronger in those days than either his party or its plat- 
form. He was the successful military chieftain who had 
conducted a great war to its end. In the immediate hour 
of victory he had been modest in regard to himself, mag- 
nanimous toward his enemies. He was not a politician. 



28 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and he had seemed anxious to eschew a party nomination, 
expressing his wish to be the candidate of and to be elect- 
ed " by the whole people." He had administered the 
War Department frugally and prudently, and it was not 
then known that he was incapable of true statesmanship, 
and had not a jot of respect for the reservations and limi- 
tations of a Constitution whose text and whose principles 
lie knew surprisingly little about. Indeed, very little was 
known of him besides his military history, but that little 
M-as generally in his favor. The persistent silence of such 
a man did not seem to be either perverse or vacuous, when 
the few rifts in it revealed such words as, " Let us have 
peace." 

The country desired peace as ardently in 18G8 as it does 
in 18S0, and people who were not politicians nor eager in 
regard to the exact drawing of political lines and political 
distinctions, really believed and hoped that peace would 
be obtained by supporting the candidature of Grant. 
In the election of November 3, 18G8, Grant and Colfax 
received 214 electoral votes to 80 for Seymour and Blair. 
Delaware's vote was given to the latter, and Mr. Bayard 
entered the Senate to become the steadfast opponent of 
the Republican party, and of the acts and tendencies of 
J-*resident Grant's administration. 

This opposition was not the outgrowth of a factious 
temper, nor of a partisan spirit. Mr. Bayard, though 
always a party man, was never a mere partisan. But his 
close observation of the acts and debates of the Thirty- 
ninth and Fortieth Congresses had given him the worst 
opinion of the designs of the Bepublican majority in 
(Congress, and he knew that even so strong a man as 
Grant, if he refused to lead, would be compelled to follow 
in tlie jatlnvay of extreme radicalism. He knew that the 



STATE OF rOLITICS.— 186<J-'70. 29 

Forty-lii'st Congress was the political executor of its im- 
mediate predecessors, and that to complete and " perfect " 
the "policy of reconstruction" according to the plan 
which had been mapped out would require the Repub- 
lican party to take still longer strides toward centraliza- 
tion, and to make still more serious encroachments upon 
the Constitution. Mr. Bayard entered Congress with the 
one leading idea, one polar star of intent, which every 
vote cast, every word uttered by him in his senatorial 
service, has served to disclose : it was to restore the Union 
in reality and bind the hearts of his countrymen in the 
common cause of national pride, honor, and welfare. To 
this end he has denounced and opposed everything tainted 
with sectional animosity, or tending to the injury or dis- 
credit of the Union. His guide has been the Constitu- 
tion and the equality of each and every member of the 
great " family of States " and their inhabitants. 

The Thirty-ninth Congress, in seeking what it chose 
to consider " security for the future," had in effect re- 
modeled the Constitution to suit the extreme views of the 
overwhelming majority which directed its legislation. It 
liad passed a great variety of measures, such as the Freed- 
man's Bureau Bill, the Civil Rights Bill, the Reconstruc- 
tion Act, the Tenure of Office Act, etc., which President 
Johnson regarded as being unconstitutional. When he 
vetoed them, the bills were passed over his objections, 
and the House, in retaliation for his disagreements with 
Congress, adopted articles of impeachment against him, 
which the Fortieth Congress pressecl with a vehemence 
very nearly successful. Mr. Bayard knew that President 
Grant would not risk exj)osing himself to any such col- 
lisions with Congress as those which President Johnson 
was forced to bear the brunt of, and consequently he felt 



30 . LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYAliD. 

satisfied that the reconstruction policy would be pushed 
forward to the bitter end. 

That policy inspired every one holding Mr. Bayard's 
views about the Constitution with the most gloomy fore- 
bodings. The power claimed for Congress to enforce, by 
'' appropriate legislation," the new amendments to the 
Constitution, was practically unlimited, except in so far 
as that Ijody was amenable to the pressure of public opin- 
ion efiectively awakened. The opposition in Congress 
could do nothing but protest — so long as the majority had 
a two thirds vote in both Houses and so long as they 
proved their determination to maintain this controlling 
preponderance of force by admitting new communities 
like Colorado and Nebraska into the family of States, 
even while keeping out Virginia and Georgia and Louisi- 
ana. It was natural to suppose that General Grant would 
not be particularly hostile to the indefinite maintenance 
of military government in the South, nor to the " enforce- 
ment acts " which j:)raetically gave to commanders, per- 
sonally appointed by him from among his favorites, entire 
control of the machinery of elections in that section. His 
ambition, though not at that time known, was suspected, 
and, anyhow, he was a man who needed to be curbed by 
exi)licit laws, rather than to be given free rein and the 
imjietus of new powers and new authority created ex- 
pressly for him to exercise. 

The Forty-first Congress was not composed of mem- 
bers likely to inspire a strict constructionist with confi- 
dence in their moderation or their power of abstention 
from injurious law-making. In many respects it was 
worse tlian its predecessors. It is true that James II. 
Lane and 15enjaniiu AVadc were no longer there, and 
Thadduus Stevens had .succumbed. Hut Simon Cameron 



STATE OF POLITICS.— 18C9-'70. 31 

and John Scott sat in the seats of Cowan and Biickalew, 
and Oliver P. Morton had entered the Senate ; Daniel 
Pratt had replaced Thomas A. Hendricks ; Conkling had 
succeeded Ira Harris, and the successors of Collamer and 
Fessenden were much more extreme than they had been. 
The Democrats had secured an immense gain in the per- 
son of Allen G. Thurman, but it grieved them and mor- 
tified even their opponents to see the vacant seats of 
senators from the Southern States filled so generally by 
the class of men called " carpet-baggers." These adven- 
turers, in a body, voted with the Kadicals on political 
issues, and (with some few exceptions) put their votes 
where they would " do them the most good " in indiffer- 
ent questions. They were the source of a great deal of 
corruption, and eventually of great injury to the Repub- 
lican party, but their votes were indispensable in working 
out " the policy of reconstruction," and for the sake of 
these votes the drill-masters of their party, such as Mor- 
ton and Conkling, graciously condoned their " evil com- 
munications," and cherished their association. 

But it was simply a caricature upon representa- 
tive government to find the seats of Houston and Wig- 
fall filled by men like Flanagan and Hamilton ; to 
see " Parson " Brownlow seated where John Bell 
and Andrew Johnson had sat ; to see Florida repre- 
sented by Gilbert and Osborn, and George E, Spen- 
cer and Willard Warner coming up to Washington 
with their credentials as " senators from Alabama " 
stulfed in their carpet-bags. Louisiana was represent- 
ed by such men as John S. Harris, William Pitt Kel- 
logg, and J. Kodman West. Mississippi was admit- 
ted with Hiram Pevells (colored man) and Adelbert 
Ames for its senators (a coup de theatre which soon 



;;2 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

uuded). South Carolina had for its senators T. J. Rob- 
ertson and T. J. Sawyer. There were certain men, named 
Abbott and Pool, who liad been admitted as senators 
from North Carolina. When Clayton and Dorsey came 
in from Arkansas, the carpet-bagger coterie was quite 
made up. 

In spite of its incongruous elements, and its diverse 
and unequal composition, however, the Senate of the 
Forty -first Congress was an able body, and a picturesque 
one also. Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President and the pre- 
siding ofiiccr, was remarkably well fitted for the perform- 
ance of the routine and physical duties devolving upon 
him. He was quick, alert, and fair in his rulings. He 
had great experience as a Congressman, and had served 
as Speaker for three successive Congresses, passing, in- 
deed, direct from the Speaker's chair to the Vice-Presi- 
dent's. The Chaplain of the Senate, Pev. J. P. Newman, 
U. D., was a leading divine of the Methodist Church, and 
a particular friend of Grant, to whom he delighted to 
minister. The Secretary was George C. Gorham, of Cali- 
fornia, esteemed then and now to be the astutest " whip " 
and the most skillful " wire-puller " in the Republican 
party ; while conspicuous among the lesser officials was 
the venerable and white-headed Isaac Bassett, from time 
immemorial assistant door-keeper of the Senate. 

The haliJtucs of the reporters' gallery knew all those 
" good gray heads " below them (but tlie Forty-first Con- 
gress had, perhaps, more than its proportion of men whose 
locks did not indicate the pale cast of thought), and even 
the most transient spectator in the strangers' gallery 
would understand that senators sat right or left of the 
\' ice-President's desk, according to their party affiliations. 
The irony of the arrangement was to crowd the entire 



STATE OF POLITICS.— 18G'J-'70. 33 

body of conservative members upon " the extreme left," 
and to give them seats upon " the mountain " rather than 
on the equable plain where their thoughts were wont to 
exercise. 

Front seat, middle aisle, left-hand side, one of the 
best scats in the chamber, was occupied by Oliver P. 
Morton, the " great war governor " of Indiana, one of 
the clearest heads, the ablest minds who ever came into 
the Senate. If Morton had been in Congress earlier, the 
radical party could have done without Thaddeus Stevens, 
for Morton was the Mirabeau, the Marat, and the Danton 
of his party. An intense and earnest man, the logical tex- 
ture of his intellect was so fine that it was only equaled 
by the convenient pliancy of his convictions. He was 
equally intrepid in declaring his opinions, and in abandon- 
ing them when they became inconvenient. It did not 
trouble him to see the reductio ad absurdum at the end 
of the vista of his argument, and his "platform" was 
arranged upon the principle of the ferry-boat piers in 
New York, so as to rise and fall in proportion to the 
height of every tide. Morton's head was fully as clear as 
the general tone of his intellect was somber. He had 
what is called a " legal mind," and his mental vision was 
seldom obscured by those clouds of hesitancy and doubt 
which breed irresolution in persons of more fastidious 
conscience. He was seldom surpassed in the faculty of 
stripping off the veils in which men are wont to cloak a 
dubious statement, and of presenting it in all its rude, 
naked, brutal force. He was a born leader, full of ambi- 
tion. He wreaked his bitterness upon his political associates 
only less than upon his political enemies. Oliver P. Mor- 
ton was the type, and the ablest exemplar of a class of 
politicians which has come to the surface since and in 



34 LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

consequence of the civil war. It is to be hoped that they 
will entirely disappear with the influences which gave 
them conspicuousncss and the generation in which they 
lived and have been tolerated. 

George F. Edmunds had an equally good seat on the 
same row, and four desks off from Morton. Like the 
Senator from Indiana, Mr. Edmunds had clean hands and 
a clear head, but, while Morton was an impetuous leader, 
the instinct of Edniunds is not formative, but destructive. 
He is a critic and a detective, with a much keener eye 
for flaws and blemishes than for beauties. His intellect, 
like his wit, is mordant ; he is better at setting pitfalls 
for others than in mapping out broad pathways for him- 
self. He conducts politics as some men play whist, ex- 
pecting to profit more by watching the play and surpris- 
ing the errors of his opponents than by his own superior 
skill. He ventures less upon finesse of his own than upon 
exposing the maladroitncss of others. It is currently be- 
lieved among the attaches of the Senate that Edmunds 
has eyes in the back of his head, and that his ears are 
never confused, no matter what bedlam of sounds may 
be rife. He is a very serviceable Senator, especially to 
his party ; and it is probably not a bad thing for a seat in 
the Senate to be constantly occupied by a man who is at 
once the bane of fools and the terror of adventurers and 
jobbers. 

Not far back of Mr. Ednninds sat Roscoe Conkling, 
\\ho already then, as he still continues to do, contem- 
))latcd himself as the Senator from New York, The 
Senator has the advantages which considerable culture, 
great abilities as a lawyer and .a politician, and great 
adroitness in threading both the broader and narrower 
ways of i)arty " iiKiiiagcinent," have secured to him. Mr. 



STATE OF POLITICS.— lSG9-"70. 35 

Colliding was the rival of Senator Morton in the " cabal " 
which conducted most of the political business of ex- 
Prcsidcnt Grant during his two terms in office, and it is 
likely that Conkling reaped many more personal benefits 
from this alliance than fell to Morton's share. But he 
has not Morton's political courage, much less his moral 
and physical courage. 

William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, was chairman of 
the Committee on Finance in March, 1869, a man of sin- 
gular ability and fairness. His vote against the impeach- 
ment of Andrew Johnson had not been forgiven by his 
party, but he was allowed to hold his place at the head of 
the Committee on Finance. He died, however, during 
the recess of Congress, and at the beginning of the ensu- 
ing session the chairmanship of this committee fell to 
John Sherman, of Ohio, the present Secretary of the 
Treasury. Sherman sat on the left, near the main aisle. 
Careful, laborious, astute, and watchful, Mr. Sherman was 
the embodiment of calculation. It is possible that he has 
convictions in regard to finance, to the tariff, and political 
affairs generally ; it is certain, however, that he has ahvays 
held to these by a cable Vv^hich he could slip whenever 
the breeze seemed either to favor or to threaten. In re- 
lation to the currency, Mr. Sherman has shifted his helm 
quite as often as Morton ; but what Morton did for the 
good of the party, Mr. Sherman did for the good of John 
Sherman. He probably knew more about banking than 
any other man in Congress ; and in his present position 
it must not be denied that he has done the country sub- 
stantial service. 

The three seats on the extreme right of the Senate 
Chamber were occupied by a rare group. In front was 
William G. Brownlow ; behind him Hiram II. Kcvells, the 



3() LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

comfortable-looking mulatto selected to succeed Jefferson 
Davis ; wliile the upper seat was filled by Mr. J. W. 
Flanagan, of Flanagan's Mills, Texas, whose like the 
Senate will not soon look upon again. This Senator, 
whose orthography was practically, if not theoretically, 
plionetic, and who regarded all syntax as an open ques- 
tion, if not an impertinence, was always conspicuous in the 
discussions of educational subjects. When the Republi- 
cans in 1S73 displaced Charles Sumner from his post as 
Chairman of the Conunittee on Foreign Relations, put- 
ting Simon Cameron in his stead, they assigned Sumner 
to the foot of Flanagan's class, the Committee on " Edu- 
cation and Labor," of which he was chairman, and his 
son, who on his visiting cards described his office as 
" Cleark," was clerk. 

On the rear seat, behind !Mr, Edmunds, sat Charles 
Snnmer, and in front of him Henry Wilson, his colleague 
from Massachusetts. Carl Schurz, present Secretary of 
the Interior, was in the front row on the left side of the 
Chamber, his colleague, Charles D. Drake, whose effi- 
cient services to Republicanism were paid with the Chief 
Judgeship of the Court of Claims, occupying an outside 
desk on the right of the main aisle. On the right of 
Edmunds sat Henry B. Anthony, of Rhode Island, one 
of the oldest, shrewdest, and most capable Senators in the 
whole body, looking much more like a " cotton lord " 
than his colleague, AVilliam Sprague. On Mr. Anthony's 
right sat a " studious-looking, stoop-shouldered gentle- 
man " — Mr. Justin S. Morrill, late Chairman of the Ways 
and Means Committee of the House, and author and 
framer of the successive bills Avhich have saddled the 
country with the protective-tai"iff system. Mr. Morrill 
seized his opportunity early, in March, 18G1, in fact, as 



STATE OF POLITICS.— 1869 '70. 37 

soon as the members whose States had seceded were out- 
side the doors of Congress, and he probably knows more 
about " woolens " than any other man in Washington. 

In the front row sat Simon Cameron, between John 
Pool and Justin Morrill, his small eyes twinkling cannily 
beneath the gray pent-house brows. On Mr. Edmunds's 
left, stout, oleaginous, Pecksniliy, was Samuel C. Pome- 
roy,* one of Kansas's senators, and behind him Hannibal 
Hamlin, of Maine, a fossiliferous remnant of ante-bellum 
days in look, but modern enough and wise enough in ways 
if you came to deal with him. Reuben E. Fenton, the 
Greeleyite Senator from New York, sat in the middle row 
on the far right, and behind him Matthew H. Carpenter, 
of Wisconsin, a- jnan whose appearance and whose address 
are equally fascinating, a clever lawyer, and the most 
ready debater on constitutional questions in the Senate, 
whose mind is as clear as a bell, wdio argues one w^ay 
and votes another, and continually takes retainers in 
causes which he despises. J^ot far from Sumner sat 
James W. Nye, of Nevada, whose vulgar w^it must have 
been particularly distasteful to the fastidious Senator 
from Beacon Street. Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan, a 
plodding, laborious Senator, but a good lawyer, sat on 
Nye's right, and on Mr. Howard's right again was Zacha- 
riah Chandler, Howard's uproarious colleague, gaunt, 
harsh, boisterous, repulsive, purse-proud, but prompt, 
resolute, energetic, full of daring, full of business training 
and resourceful mother-wit, and utterly unscrupulous in 
regard to any question of ways and means. Chandler 
knew both men and things thoroughly well. His success 
as a merchant was easy to understand. One of his speeches 
in the Senate in 1870, on the decline of American ship- 

* Senator Dilwoithy, of the " Goldcu Age." 



38 LIFE OF TEOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ping, made after a visit to the British iron-ship yards on 
the Clyde and the Mersey, is quite the best speech on 
tliat subject, 

Lyman Trumbull, one of the ablest lawyers and most 
conscientious men in the Senate, sat beside Timothy O. 
Howe, Carpenter's colleague, not a bad lawyer himself, but 
a wretched speaker. James Harlan, of Iowa, who became 
Grant's Secretary of the Interior, and George II. Wil- 
liams, of Oregon, afterward Grant's Attorney General, did 
not sit together, but were " tarred with the same stick." 
If they had come from Southern States, they would have 
earned the title of carpet-baggers. Both notoriously un- 
scrupulous, Harlan found in the Indian Bureau what 
Williams sought in the department of justice, and both 
are thought to have worked their placers pretty well. 

The Democratic phalanx in the Senate when Mr. 
Bayard came to reinforce it was not strong, neither was 
it compact. The two oldest members, George Yickers, 
of Maryland, and Garrett Davis, of Kentuck}^, happened 
to be, both of them, uncompromising, old-line, Henry 
Clay Whigs, and devoted and "unconditional Union 
men," whose war fevers and war fervor had been sud- 
denly quenched by Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclama- 
tion and by the anti-slavery amendment. Both these es- 
timable old gentlemen had had "hay on their horns" for 
some years at the very idea of an enforced negro equal- 
ity ; and the zeal with which they now fought for the 
reserved rights of the States was as amusing as it was 
sincere. It recalls an anecdote which that eminent Knick- 
erbucker, James W. Gerard, used to tell of the famous 
" Doctors' Itiot " in New York. Among those who went 
out with the Mayor and the troops was Baron von Steu- 
ben, the lievolutiuuary general, who, when the military 



STATE OF rOLITICS.— 18r.9-"70. 39 

were about to fire, lifted his hands in horrified protest. 
" For God's sake, do not — " he began, when a well-aimed 
missile struck him in the forehead and felled him to the 
ground. As soon as he could be picked up, he shouted, in 
quite a different tone : " Shoodt the tamt schoundrels, 
Mayor, shoodt dem ! " 

Mr. Vickers was a small, quiet, unobtrusive gentleman, 
of very estimable life. lie had grown gray as a family 
lawyer in a country town, and was not used to the turmoil 
of politics. He was sound and stanch, however, delivered 
long, solid constitutional arguments, that were a bit prosy, 
perhaps, but he could and did sit it out with the best of 
them in those frequent all-night sessions in which argu- 
ment was hopeless, and filibustering became a disagreeable 
party duty. Mr. Garrett Davis, on the contrary, was a 
salamander in the fire of politics, his natural element. He 
was the most peppery of senators, always quarreling, and 
never letting the sun go down upon his wrath. The sun 
often went down, and sometimes rose, upon his speeches, 
however, which were the longest of the period, dry as 
stubble, and seldom exhilarating in their style. Mr. Davis 
was a sterling old gentleman, as courteous and high- 
minded as he was garrulous, and as ready to joke as any 
of his opponents were about " the short gentleman's long 
speeches." 

On some of the questions arising in the Senate, then 
and later, the Democrats were aided by the voices and 
votes of Lyman Trumbull, of Boreman and Willey, the 
two senators from West Virginia, of Hamilton, of Texas, 
Norton, of Minnesota, Fenton, of New York, and Tipton, 
of Nebraska, the latter, together with Fowler, of Tennes- 
see, and Robertson, of South Carolina, becoming more 
and more liberal as their experience grew. But the Dem- 



40 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ocratic names which could be depended upon on all occa- 
sions were few indeed when Mr. Bayard came first to the 
Senate. Eugene Casserly, of California, was one of the 
hest and strongest of these — a man who always stood by 
Mr. Bayard's side. In the New York Custom-House In- 
vestigations Mr. Casserly and Senator Bayard were in 
steady cooperation. William T. Hamilton, of Maryland, 
the present Governor of that State, was a clear, logical 
speaker, a strict State-rights Democrat, and a pronounced 
and most uncompromising believer in hard money. Large, 
portly, yet active in person, plain, homely, farmer-like in 
dress and manners, with an emphatic style of direct speech, 
and in conversation a proclivity for expletives and round, 
Jacksonian oaths, few who did not know him were able to 
detect under this exterior the wealthy capitalist and bank- 
er, the experienced politician, and a Congressman of three 
successive terms. Mr. Hamilton's seat was about mid- 
way of the middle row of desks upon the left. The far- 
thest seat upon the outer row on the left was occupied by 
John W. Johnston, then as now Senator from Virginia, 
a safe, unassuming man, business-like rather than brilliant, 
but looking after the concerns of his constituents with 
steadfast, untlagging solicitude. 

In the same row, in the rear of Mr. Hamilton, sat 
Thomas C. McCreery, of Kentucky, whose confessed 
laziness did not prevent him from being one of the most 
original and striking "characters" of the Senate. He 
proljably thought — at any rate, acted as if he thought — 
that Garrett Davis had superfluous energy enough for two 
senators. He seldom spoke, seldom made a motion, or 
oflered a resolution, or indulged in incidental remarks 
(the index of Senate proceedings gives ten times as 
iiiuch space to Sherman or Sumner, or Pomeroy, as to 



STATE OF POLITICS.— 18C9-'70. 41 

McCreerj), yet, whenever he did speak, he was sure of 
a large and delighted audience, for he was an orator such 
as only Kentucky has produced, elegant, ornate, imagina- 
tive. He had the appearance and wore the dress of the 
" old school," but in a sort of neglige withal. His round 
hgurc, bald head, encinctiired as with the priestly tonsure, 
and his somnolent manner, were charmingly conspicuous 
from the galleries. 

Mr. Bayard's desk was immediately in front of that 
of Mr. John P. Stockton, Democratic Senator from New 
Jersey. Mr. Stockton, son of Commodore Stocktonj^ the 
distinguished millionaire diplomatist and Senator, was 
himself marked with many traits inherited from his 
father. He had the look, the aplomb, and the manners 
of a resident at foreign courts, as he had been, and was 
withal a most able Senator and a thoroughly capable man 
in every way. His thoughtful face and incisive address 
were sharpened and intensified by the consciousness that 
he had been made to suffer unworthily for opinion's sake. 
He was unquestionably turned out of the Senate by a 
majority vote on March 27, 1866, in order to give the 
Republicans a two thirds majority in that body. Mr. 
Stockton was a Democrat by education and conviction, 
and he and Mr. Bayard worked together with perfect 
unanimity on many momentous occasions. He looked, 
dressed, and had the manners of a high-bred man of the 
world, was a clever debater, and never missed the chance 
to make a point against his political opponents. 

Willard Saulsbury, who sat next to Mr. McCreery and 
was Mr. Bayard's colleague, as he had been the colleague 
of James Asheton Bayard, was not a ready debater, though 
a frequent one. But he was a good lawyer, having served 
for five years as Attorney General of Delaware, and he 



42 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

was the last surviving Democrat of tlie old regime left in 
the Senate. The wave which swept Jesse D. Bright away 
had failed to remove Mr. Saulsbury, who was an inveterate 
peace Democrat, always ready, in season and out of season, 
to raise his voice in protest against the revolutionary acts 
which he could not arrest. Mr. Saulsbury, who originally 
came into the Senate in 1859, was perhaps a " Bourbon," 
but he had in a very high degree the courage of his opin- 
ions, and all through the period from 1860 to 1870 he 
never ceased to denounce what he found to be contrary 
to the principles he held and flagitious in his views of the 
sanctityof the Constitution. His speeches were elaborate, 
long, heavy, but downright and direct. The Republicans 
tried to avoid replying to him, but very often his stalwart 
accusations irritated them to make fierce retorts. An in- 
domitable stickler for precedent, restless, impatient, often 
pacing the carpet in the rear of the senators' seats, Mr. 
Saulsbury never concealed that half his affection for Dela- 
ware consisted in admiration of her old ways. " I say, as 
one of the representatives of Delaware on this floor," he 
remarked when the Freedman's Bureau Bill was under dis- 
cussion in the Thirty-ninth Congress, " that she has the 
proud and noble character of being the first to enter the 
Federal Union under a Constitution formed by equals. 
She has been the very last to obey a mandate, legislative 
or executive, for abolishing slavery. She has been the last 
slave-holding State, thank God, in America, and I am one 
of the last slave-holders in America." 

Next to Senator Johnston sat Allen G. Thurman, of 
Ohio, one of the best and readiest debaters, ablest law- 
yers, and clearest-headed men who ever came to the 
Senate. No one can note his square, sturdy figure, his 
firm face, not without the illumination of a sort of grim 



STATE OF rOLITICS.— 18G9-'70. 43 

humor twinkling in it, and the inimitable flourish of his 
red bandanna handkerchief as he takes snuff, without 
recognizing at once the mental gladiator filled with 
certaminis gaudia. A Yirginian by birth, brought up 
among plain Ohio folks, a judge and a lawyer deep read 
in the principles and versed in all the practical rules of 
his profession, an ardent politician of the Jacksonian 
school, with amendments made to conform systems to his 
own original thought, Senator Thurman came to the 
Senate fortified with a store of unusual resources, which 
he is always willing and even eager to draw upon at 
sight in an unlimited way. Critical as Edmunds, he has 
that sort of constructive ability in which Edmunds is 
conspicuously lacking. His services on the Judiciary 
Committee have been important and valuable, and his 
power of work is simply prodigious. Edmunds can pick 
to pieces a bill, a charter, or a proposition, but Thurman 
can amend it so as to remove its evils, and give vitality 
and usefulness to what was before noxious and injurious. 
He is full of ambition, wants to be President, likes the 
sound of his own voice. He would have been a still more 
serviceable Senator, a more prominent and a more con- 
sistent statesman, had he chanced to represent some other 
State than Ohio. The turbid condition of politics there, 
the conflict of interest and faction, the winds of party 
favor blowing from so many different quarters, have not 
always enabled this learned and astute Senator to sail as 
directly on one course as plain men desire. He has had 
to steer between Scylla and Charybdis, and his keel has 
been abraded by the deadly rocks upon both larboard and 
starboard. The Democratic party and tlie country, how- 
ever, owe a debt of recognizance to Judge Thurman 
which it will not be easy to forget. His acumen, his 
3 



44 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

logic, liis learning, his quickness and intrepidity in debate, 
have all availed him to stand in the breach and defend 
the Constitution, He has done yeoman's service in pull- 
ing up radical Republicanism upon its desperate course, in 
bringing it to its senses, and in awakening the whole 
country to its fatal designs. He has found out how to 
arrest and put constitutional checks upon the great cor- 
porations and monopolies, and has brought the insolence 
of land-grant railroad companies to swift punishment. 

Thurman, Bayard, Stockton, Casserly, Davis, Vickers, 
Hamilton, Trumbull, and Schurz, by the power and 
force of their oratory, and the awakened attention of the 
country to it, wrought a great change in the manner 
of transacting business in the Senate. Debate was re- 
sumed in the Forty-first Congress, after sleeping in pa- 
ralysis through the Thirty-eighth, the Thirty-ninth, and 
the Fortieth Congresses. In those former years, under 
the force of a two thirds majority, it was the practice to 
concoct and shape measures in caucus, propose them in 
Congress, allow the Democrats a limited time to speak 
against them, the Republicans making no replies, and 
voting down all amendments. Then, after a brief speech 
l)y the " manager " of the bill, the Houses passed to the 
order of the day, the bill was put through under the 
party lash, and sent at once to the President, But a new 
order of tilings, or rather, a return to the old order, be- 
gan with the Forty-first Congress. The caucus cowhide 
was less often applied ; Republicans, who became individu- 
ally responsible for measures, found that the combined 
assaults of the Democratic leadws put them and their 
bills uj^on the defensive. The party no longer dared to 
go to the people upon bills in regard to Avhich ]iublic 
opinion was untried. Thus de])ate began again, and the 



STATE OF POLITICS.— 1869-'70. 45 

opportunity was afforded to the Democratic senators to 
show the fallacies and the quicksands upon which their 
opponents were trying to build their fabric of government. 
This gave a new impulse to the Democratic cause, and 
enabled the devoted leaders in the Senate and House 
to seize upon and foster the reaction already beginning 
in 18G9, in consequence of the flagrant incapacity of the 
carpet-baggers, the prostrate and miserable state of the 
helpless South, and the uncompromising assaults of Re- 
publicans upon the very essence of the Constitution. 
Extravagant expenditures, disordered finances, and the 
enormous burdens of the tariff and internal revenue sys- 
tem, all combined to promote this reaction, and the Dem- 
ocrats in House and Senate were prompt to show that 
the blame for all these disorders belonged to the Repub- 
lican majority. 

There were many able men in the House of Repre- 
sentatives at the time when Mr. Bayard entered the Sen- 
ate. James G. Blaine, the Speaker, Dawes, Allison, Beck, 
Yoorhees, Sergent, Bamum, are, or have been, senators 
since then. Garfield, B. F. Butler, Poland, Hale, Morell, 
Schenck, Lawrence, Bingham, Maynard, Orth, Tyner, 
Burchard, Hawley, McCrary were all strong men and 
good debaters on the Republican side. The Democrats 
were led by Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, afterward 
Speaker, and who was ably seconded by James Brooks, 
Fernando Wood, S. S. Cox, Williams, Beck, and Mar- 
shall, in the tariff discussions, and by Clarkson N. Potter, 
Woodward, Knott, and Yoorhees, on matters appertain- 
ing to the Constitution and the laws. William S. Holman, 
the " watch-dog of the Treasury," was probably a better 
critic of appropriation bills than any opposition party ever 
had before or since. 



46 I'lFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

In tlie final analysis, it may be said that the issues in 
1869-'70 were quite as important as those of 1865-'7. 
The civil M-ar was fought out upon the general question 
of the supremacy of the Union, This having been once 
and forever finally determined, parties divided naturally 
and inevitably upon the terms upon vi^hich the Union 
should be reconstituted. Upon this issue, while the 
Democrats favored restoration, with the Constitution as 
nearly unimpaired as might be, the Republican party al- 
most universally held for reconstruction — in other words, 
for a Union based upon their particular interpretation of 
the Federal compact, an interpretation which they thought 
they were entitled to enforce, not because it was logical, 
or probable, or according to the language of the insti-u- 
ment to be construed, but because they had the power, 
and because it seemed to insure the empire for which 
they had spent so much blood and treasure. This, then, 
was the line upon which parties were drawn when Mr. 
Bayard first came into the Senate of the United States. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OUTLINE OF MR. BAYAKd's POLITICAL SERVICES. 

Mr. Bayard took his seat in tlie Senate March 4, 
1869. The oath of office was that well-known " iron- 
clad " oath, framed expressly and ingeniously to be a 
standing obstacle in the way of every respectable person 
elected to Congress from any State south of Mason and 
Dixon's line. It was the oath which his father had first 
taken, and then, in stern resentment that such an indig- 
nity should be put upon one who had served the State so 
long, resigned. Mr. Bayard took this oath, and he has 
kept it in a religious sort of way not pleasing to his political 
opponents, who do not agree at all with him in his under- 
standing of the obligations which he assumed in declaring 
" And I do further swear that, to the best of my knowl- 
edge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitu- 
tion of the United States against all enemies, foreign and 
domestic ; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to 
the same ; that I take this obligation freely, without any 
mental reservation or purpose of evasion ; and that I will 
well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on 
which I am about to enter. So help me God ! " From 
1869 up to 1880 Mr. Bayard's course in the Senate has 
made him conspicuously a supporter and defender of the 
Constitution against its domestic enemies, the only ene- 
mies that have seriously tried to overturn it. He has 



48 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

never missed dealing a blow in that cause, nor has he 
ever had time to take off his armor and rest. For eleven 
years the battle has raged incessantly, and he has been 
ever in its front. 

No Senator has better or more faithfully discharged 
the onerous duties of this office, complicated and multi- 
farious as they are. A Senator's duties are to his country, 
to his State, to his constituents as individuals, to the legis- 
lative body itself of which he is a member, to the party 
whose political doctrines he upholds. The proper dis- 
charge of all these particular and constantly recurring 
obligations, many of which rest upon the man more than 
upon the statesman, is very fatiguing work. A great 
many Senators are disposed to break the weight of the 
l)urden by doing some of these duties either vicariously 
or in a very perfunctory way. 

Some give but little time, attention, or labor to com- 
mittee work ; some take no part nor lot in debate ; some 
conduct their correspondence, get up their statistics, and 
prepare their speeches by the hands of " private secreta- 
ries " ; while others again, restricting themselves to sena- 
torial work, are never to be found upon the hustings, nor 
showing any interest in public or party affairs. But this 
has not been Mr. Bayard's way of taking his duties. One 
of the most accessible of senators, he is one of the most 
laborious also, plodding away at routine committee work, 
like a de])artment clerk, even in the moment of prepara- 
tion of his most elaborate speeches. He is always at his 
committee table when needed there, always in his seat in 
the Senate M'hcn needed there. It is rarely that he misses 
a vote on any material question. It used to be said of a 
distinguished Senator, now deceased, that he always chose 
a desk near the door, in order to get away quickly when 



OUTLINE OF MR. BAYARD'S POLITICAL SERVICES. 49 

he wished to " dodge an issue." Mr. Bayard has not ac- 
quired nor desired to become expert in the art of dodging 
issues. His votes are as frank as his character, and rep- 
resent the steadfast consciousness of his mind that lie 
does not hold any opinions which he fears to express, or 
thinks it expedient to conceal or politic to cloak or veil. 
He takes a liberal part in all leading debates and dis- 
cussions, while not so often making set and elaborate 
speeches. He is a thoroughly business Senator, yet no 
man in the Chamber has introduced fewer bills for the 
sake of appearing to originate measures. 

Soon after entering upon the duties of his office Mr. 
Bayard began to serve as one of the Committee of Fi- 
nance, his name being at the foot of the list, as it now is 
at the head. His colleagues in this committee were Sher- 
man, the chairman who succeeded Fessenden, Williams, 
Cattell, Morrill of Vermont, "Warner, and Fenton. The 
lowest place was also given him on the Committee on 
Private Land Claims, a hard-worked committee, of which 
"Williams was chairman, and on the committee likewise 
on the Revision of the Laws, when his colleagues were 
Conkling, Sumner, Carj^enter, and Pool. When the 
first Ku-Klux Investigating Committee was appointed in 
1871, and ISTorth Carolina was the theatre of inquisition, 
Mr. Bayard represented the minority. He also served 
in the searching inquests made in South Carolina, Florida, 
and Georgia, and he resolutely fought the first " Force 
Bill " (which grew out of that investigation) at the head 
of the gallant band of Senators who deserve so well of 
their country for their struggles in that emergency. 
When the second Force Bill was attempted to be put 
through in 1875, with its dire accompaniments of the 
suspension of the habeas corpus, Mr. Bayard was assigned 



50 LH'E OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

to the same part in the Senate as that given to Mr. Sam- 
uel J. Kandall in the TTousc, and the final victory in that 
grim struggle of the party of law against the party of 
force is due in a very great measure to Mr, Bayard's tact, 
endurance, and dexterous qualities of leadership. 

One of the best pieces of work ever done by Mr. 
Bayard was his service to the commerce and the revenue 
system of the country as a member of the Senate Com- 
mittee on Investigation and Ketrenchment, which looked 
into the afiairs of the New York Custom-House, and ex- 
posed the abuses of the general-order system. This com- 
mittee, which was appointed December 18, 1871, had Sen- 
ator Buckingham, of Connecticut, for its chairman. There 
were but two Democrats u])on it — Messrs. Bayard and 
Casserly — and their eftorts to got at the facts were contin- 
ually thwarted by White-House influences ; by the adroit, 
unscrupulous tactics of Senator Conkling, who constitu- 
ted himself counsel for the abuses and their perpetrators ; 
and by the whole secret power of the New York Custom- 
House and the detective service of the Treasury, all of 
M'hich Conkling wielded in his efforts to screen his " hench- 
men." So complete were the exposures made by Mr. 
Bayard and Mr. Casserly, however, even in the face of 
all these odds, that not only were Leet and Stocking, the 
general-order monopolists, appointed by Grant, removed, 
and the general-order system abandoned, but the whole 
atrocious " moiety" system fell with it, the Custom-IIouse 
was purified by the expulsion of Murj)hy, and the New 
^'ork merchants were afforded an almost inexpressible 
I'clief in the pursuit of their business.* The trenchant 

* An clnhoratc report by Mr. Bayard testifies the ability and vigor of 
liis and Mr. Casscrly's efforts to emancipate the uierchauts of New York 
from a reign of terror by special agents. 



OUTLINE OF MR. BAYARD'S POLITICAL SERVICES. 51 

blows dealt bj Mr, Bajard at tbe corruptions and abuses 
he was thus mainly instrumental in exposing went a great 
way toward fostering the Liberal Republican revolt 
against Grantism which culminated in the Cincinnati 
Convention of 1872. 

Another admirable party performance of Mr. Bayard's, 
with national ends in view, was his service upon the com- 
mittee appointed to investigate the affairs of Mississippi, 
previous to the election of 1876. This committee, of 
which the self-sufficient ex-Secretary Boutwell, the Sena- 
tor from Massachusetts, was chairman, and James Red- 
path, the peripatetic showman, reformer, and newspaper 
correspondent, was clerk, proposed to do a great piece of 
work for the Republican party. The " managers " of 
that party knew that the election of 1876 would be very 
close — close enough to make the exclusion of the eight 
electoral votes of Mississij^pi very important to them. 
Senator Morton accordingly moved for a committee of in- 
vestigation into the conduct of the election of 1875 in that 
State. The resolution, after amendments by Mr. Chris- 
tiancy had been accepted, was adopted in March, 1876, 
and the committee began work in April, the Republicans 
being represented by Messrs. Boutwell, Cameron, of Wis- 
consin, and McMillan, while Messrs. Bayard and Mc- 
Donald were the Democrats. The minority report of 
this committee, made in August, 1876, was so conclusive 
that the Republicans were forced to abandon their nefari- 
ous design and permit the vote of Mississippi to be taken. 
This report is one of the best state papers which has ever 
emanated from the Senate, and the results of the inex- 
pugnable stand taken by Messrs. Bayard and McDonald 
on this issue were momentous. The Republicans, find- 
ing they could not elect their candidate by fair means. 



52 LIFE OF TnOMAS F. BAYARD, 

determined to secure liis being seated by foul means- 
Senator Morton went to the Pacific and, in connection 
witli Gorham, " secured " the electoral vote of California 
and Oregon. When even these, it was found, would not 
be sufficient to serve them, the Keturning Board con- 
trivance and the Visiting Statesmen comedy in the South- 
ern States were brought into play, a manufactured ma- 
jority of one was made ready against the meeting of Con- 
gress, and the country was notified that, unless it gulped 
this witches' broth without a grimace, it must prepare for 
revolution. 

The Electoral Commission naturally and regularly 
ensued, and of Mr. Bayard's service upon this, as well 
as upon the other committees which have been named, 
fuller particulars and illustrations will be found fur- 
ther on in the present volume, the object of this chap- 
ter being to show, in briefest outline, the work which 
the Senate and his party intnisted to one of the young- 
est members. 

All this work was well done, thoroughly done, done 
cleanly, and done intelligently. The consistency of Mr. 
Bayard's political and senatorial career is not simply the 
result of early associations and inherited principle. It is 
a consistency such as comes from ripe reflection and ma- 
tured patience in thought, an educated, logical consistency 
wliich defies antagonism, because it is fully conscious that 
it fights in armor of proof and with tempered weapons, 
lie votes, speaks, and acts in every contingency as an 
honest, loyal Democrat should, but he is a Democrat 
quite as much by force of the intellect as by pei-suasion 
of the heart. lie holds his principles and directs iiis ac- 
tions under the guidance of right reason, and he is the 
one man in the countiy bound to be right in his own 



OUTLINE OF MR. BAYARD'S POLITICAL SERVICES. 53 

mind, whether his party be right or wrong. Unlike Mr. 
Boutwell, who proclaimed that political economy varied 
according to degrees of longitude, Mr. Bayard is a man 
wliose princij^les are cosmopolitan and universal. He is 
not a better Democrat in Delaware than he would be jn 
Vermont, nor a better revenue reformer in Delaware than 
he would be in Pennsylvania, nor a better bullion ist in 
Delaware than he would be in Indiana or Iowa, in Maine 
or in Kansas. 

Hence the superior consideration which Mr. Bayard 
receives in thoughtful, non-partisan quarters, over and 
above the great majority of his associates in the Senate. 
These may be his equals and co-mates in appositeness 
and force of argument, but, when they speak, people 
are prone to ask, " What is the motive, or the induce- 
ment ? " while, if Bayard speaks, they ask, " What is 
it that has convinced him ? " It was this which always 
made Mr. Bayard more than a match for the late Mr. 
Morton, in spite of the acumen and logical force of the 
latter's arguments, and the terse vigor with which he 
put them. 

Mr. Bayard's speeches are not ornate ; they are not 
elaborated with great care, but they contain broad views 
upon large subjects, presented plainly and honestly, and 
they always carry conviction with them in every quarter, 
if not of the speaker's correctness, at least of his sincerity. 
These speeches deal with momentous subjects in a com- 
petent and statesmanlike manner. They review pretty 
much all the history which the United States have been 
making during the past ten years, and the principles em- 
bodied in them will outlast the events in connection with 
which they were enunciated. More will be said of these 
speeches, and some quotations be made from them, fur- 



54 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ther on in this memoir, but a Avord or two in this place 
in regard to their range and scope, and the influence they 
have exerted, will not be amiss. 

Mr. Bayard, when he first came into the Senate, took 
ground against the public credit bill (the earliest measure 
of President Grant's administration), because it did not 
go far enough, and assure the country also of a speedy 
return to specie payments. From his position Mr. Bay- 
ard has never swerved. Others have trimmed, shuffled, 
dodged, contented themselves with the half loaf as being 
])etter than no bread, but always Mr. Bayard has shown 
himself to be the Abdiel of currency reform. No matter 
whether we see him opposing Schenck's Public Credit act 
of 1869 because it did not go far enough, or Sherman's 
Funding bill of 1870 and the Resumption bill of 1875, for 
the same reasons ; or combating Senator Merrimon's in- 
flation plan; or writing to Southern newspapers, and 
visiting Southern assemblages, to awaken those consti- 
tuencies to their duties ; or objecting to the ambiguous 
clauses of the St. Louis platform ; or making war upon 
the proposition to pay the debt in silver ; or proposing, 
in the face of a timid Senate, to make resumption per- 
manent by making it actual — in every case, not as a 
jiarty man, not as a believer in expediency, not for 
his own personal advancement or glorification, but be- 
cause he recognizes it to be right and necessary, and 
the duty of the republic— Mr. Bayard has spoken, voted, 
and acted for the restoration of the currency and the 
finances of the country to a hard-money basis. He has 
been as brave on this point as the greater part of his 
Democratic fellows have been vacillating and timid. lie 
luis been as straightforward and consistent on the whole 
currency issue throughout as Morton and Slierman were 



OUTLINE OF MR. BAYARD'S POLITICAL SERVICES. 55 

throughout insincere, inconsistent, and changeable. His 
speeches on currency and banking have been vahiablc 
and substantial contributions to the literature of the sub- 
ject, while his votes have been those of a genuine states- 
man incapable of yielding to any suggestion of tempo- 
rary expediency. 

Next in importance to what Mr. Bayard has said and 
done in matters of finance are his speeches upon the grave 
constitutional questions growing out of the post-bellum 
amendments, the Reconstruction policy, and the Enforce- 
ment acts and new election laws established and attempt- 
ed to be established during the malign ascendancy of the 
Republican party. In the elaborate discussion of these 
great questions during the last ten years, Mr. Bayard 
has labored under the disadvantage of reopening themes 
already thoroughly treated by the master minds of the 
republic, and in the immediate controversy upon which 
he was equally embarrassed by towering associates and 
astute and skillful antagonists. "What chance had one of 
the youngest senators in the lot in a question of the 
limitation of powers of the Federal Executive, or of the 
powers of the States under the Constitution, when he 
knew that this or that point had already been treated in the 
" Federalist " by Hamilton or Madison, had already been 
argued in the Senate by Webster, or Calhoun, or Benton, 
and, when it came up anew, would be seized upon by 
Thurman, Stockton, Casserly, on his side, and assailed, on 
the other, by all the force of Trumbull, Edmunds, Mor- 
ton, Conkling, and Carpenter ? Yet Mr. Bayard's stand- 
ing as a constitutional lawyer is unsurpassed in the Senate, 
and his arguments in the Mississippi case, his half dozen 
epeeches about Louisiana, his speeches on the Force bills 
and the Congressional Election laws, are recognized as 



56 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

among the best expositions which we have. As supple- 
mentary to these, in exactly defining the limits of the Con- 
stitution, his minor speeches on the question of colored 
children in the schools, on the Centennial Exposition, on 
rivers and harbors, and the liquor trafiic commission, are 
especially noteworthy. 



CHAPTER Y. 

LEADING QUESTIONS. — MR. BATARD's VIEWS. 

• Thomas Francis Bayard is a party man because, in 
liis view, parties mean something. He does not belong 
to tliat " Shifty Dick " school of politicians who have 
grown lip so rapidly since the war, and who hold that 
party is merely an agglomeration of individuals having a 
concerted purpose to put some other people out of office 
and put themselves in. On the contrary, the Senator 
believes that the doctrine of " principles, not men," means 
that principles are to be preferred to popularity, and that 
a man's fealty to party is due to the principles actuating 
it, and not to the leaders who direct it or the mass who 
are directed. There is no factious spirit of rude inde- 
pendence in this, but only a deep conscientiousness. " If 
my party departs from its principles," said Mr. Bayard, 
in a recent conversation, " it is no longer my party, but 
something else. It has gone away from me, not I from 
it. I may follow it, if I choose. I may join the oppo- 
site ranks, if I choose, or, if I can approve neither, I am 
still not bound to make any sacrifices of conscience, for 
/ can take Tny hat and go horned 

The expression is highly characteristic of the man. 
He will not be tied to any course of action of which his 
intellect and conscience do not approve, out of com- 
plaisance to the terrible "consequences." The conse- 



53 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

quences have no great weight witli him, since, unlike the 
greater part of the politicians around him, he always has 
the altei-native of taking his hat and going home. Such 
a man can not be coerced nor " bulldozed," as Mr. Bayard 
easily proved when the attempt was made to do so at the 
last extra session of Congress. He proved it when, at 
the Baltimore Democratic Convention in 1872, he re- 
fused, and led the Delaware delegates to refuse, to endorse 
the nomination of Horace Greeley, already the Liberal 
Republican nominee at Cincinnati. Mr. Bayard sup- 
ported Mr. Greeley in the end, and spoke in favor of his 
election ; but he would not recognize him as being the 
Democratic candidate, and he did perfectly right not to 
do so. In his speech in that campaign, delivered at In- 
stitute Hall, Wilmington, Del., October 4, 1872, Mr. 
Bayard said, emphatically : " I went to Baltimore, as you 
know, to represent in part the people of this State. I 
Avent there opposed to Mr. Greeley's nomination. No 
matter what was my cause for it ; you may call it my 
prejudices, or my judgment. I went there believing it 
was our duty and our right to have a Democrat nomi- 
nated who should represent us, and we should vote for 
him upon our own platform worded in our own way. I 
reached Balthnore to find myself one of the smallest 
minoi'ity that ever assembled in a convention. I have 
nothing now to say of the scenes there, only that I did 
my duty as I believed I ought to do it, and as I believed 
yon desired it should be done." 

He proved this same sort of independence in his manly 
speech on the bill for counting the electoral vote, deliv- 
ered January 21, 1877, in which he said: "Mr. Presi- 
dent, in the course of my dnty here as a representative 
of the rights of others, as a chosen and sworn public ser- 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. 59 

vant, I feel that I have no right to give my individual 
wishes, prejudices, interests, undue influence over my 
pubhc action. To do so would be to commit a breach 
of trust in the powers confided to me. It is true I was 
chosen a senator by a majority only, but not for a major- 
ity only. I was chosen hy a party, but not for a party. 
I represent all the good people of the State which has 
sent me here. In my office as a senator I recognize no 
claim upon my action in the name and for the sake of 
party. The oath I have taken is to support the Consti- 
tution of my country's government, not the fiat of any 
political organization even could its will be ascertained. 
In sessions preceding the present I have adverted to the 
difficulty attending the settlement of this great question, 
and have urgently besought action in advance at a time 
when the measure adopted could not serve to j^redicate 
its results to either party. My failure then gave me great 
uneasiness, and filled me with anxiety ; and yet I can now 
comprehend the wisdom concealed in my disappointment, 
for in the very emergency of this hour, in the shadow of 
the danger that has drawn so nigh to us, has been begot- 
ten in the hearts of American senators and representa- 
tives and the American people a spirit worthy of the oc- 
casion — born to meet these difficulties, to co2:)e with them, 
and, God willing, to conquer them?'' 

But the most signal instances which we have of Mr. Bay- 
ard's non-partisan character, and of his determination not to 
be governed by any rules of expediency, nor to admit that 
there can be any rules of conduct, even for senators, higher 
or more supreme than the dictates of a man's own con- 
science, are to be found in two of his most recent speeches-, 
that upon the bill to repeal test oaths for jurors, made June 
5, 1879, at the extra session of Congress, and that upon 



60 LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

the resolution witlidraM'ing from United States notes tlieir 
legal-tender power, made January 27, 1880. This latter 
resolution, which the Senate Finance Committee finally 
declined to report, was Mr. Bayard's pet measure, con- 
verting, as it would have converted, Mr. Sherman's fiction 
of resumption into a fact, and an abiding and perpetual 
one. Mr. Bayard said that he was not a believer in 
" Congressional alchemy," and he wanted to see any fur- 
ther attempts in tliat direction abandoned. " Whether 
the Senate will concur in my views I know not," he said, 
" for a subject like this has never been and never will be 
made by me a subject of party caucus, or personal canvass 
for votes." In the course of this speech, referring to the 
position of Democratic senators, and the contrast between 
their immediate action and the ancient traditions of the 
party, Mr. Bayard said that he could safely take the de- 
clarations of party faith and principles — of eveiy national, 
of every State, of every county convention of the Demo- 
cratic party from the foundation of the Government down 
to the present year, and find nothing in them but the 
denunciation of paper money, and " the steady declaration 
from generation to generation, in war and in peace, that 
gold and silver coins are the only true and constitutional 
money of the United States — according to the doctrines 
of true democraeyy Mr. Bayard added, with his usual 
frankness, making sure of the vote of Mr. George H. Pen- 
dleton in antagonism to this resolution which, if it were 
to pass the Senate at the present session of Congress, 
would give Mr. Bayard the position of the leading advo- 
cate of hard money in the United States : " In consider- 
ing so grave and all-important a principle as lies at the 
root of this discussion, I shall not turn aside to impale 
individuals upon their inconsistencies ; such occupation 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. Gl 

would be trivial and nnwortliy — but when this legal-tender 
power eighteen years ago was sought for the first time in 
our history to be exercised by Congress, there was not to 
be found a Democrat in either House who did not deny 
it. Look to the record, see how they voted — how they 
spoke. I am half tempted to recite here tlie fervent and 
true eloquence with which some, even now members of 
this Senate, denounced the assertion of so disastrous a 
power. But their action has passed into history, and can 
be revised by those who desire it. I can only say that, 
if I sought for texts peculiarly condemnatory of such a 
power as I now seek to withdraw from the paper issues 
of the Government, I could find them abundantly in 
the speeches and writings of the most distinguished, 
trusted, and authoritative leaders of the "Democratic party. 
I am content to follow in their footsteps, and here to- 
day to plant myself more firmly in their principles, which 
time has proven to be founded upon truth and justice. 
And intending no impeachment of others, I must say 
that I am unable to comprehend the logic and reason- 
ing which, admitting such a law to be in violation of 
the Constitution, yet justifies a vote to perpetuate its 
presence on the statute-book. I confess I am unable so 
to construe the obligation I have taken to support and de- 
fend that Constitution, and bear true faith and allegiance 
to the same." No partisan, no mere politician, none but 
a firm lover of the truth, and possessed of the highest moral 
courage, ever spoke thus. 

It was said at the time, and has been repeated since, that, 
when Mr. Bayard opposed the defeat of the appropriation 
bills at the extra session of Congress last summer, he sacri- 
ficed his prospects of a nomination by the Democratic 
party as their candidate for the Presidency. Those who 



62 LIFE OF THOMAS F, BAYARD. 

think well of tlie Democratic partj, and have faith in its 
destinies and the ultimate success of its princij^les, do not 
believe any such thing. But even if it had been the 
naked, literal fact, Mr. Bayard would have spoken and 
voted as lie did all the same. He is a statesman, who, 
like Henry Clay, would rather be right than be President ; 
nor does he think it necessary to pose and assume a look of 
resignation in announcing the fact. In truth, he does not 
announce it at all, but simply does his duty as he feels 
himself bound, leaving the action to speak for itself. 

In this case it must have been very distasteful to Mr. 
Bayard, an extremely disagreeable duty, to prefer another 
course of conduct in regard to this bill to that adopted by 
the majority of his political associates in both houses, 
Not only had the caucus sentiment been openly mani- 
fested, but Mr. Bayard's sympathies were strongly exer- 
cised in favor of the measures in question. In his own 
words, he held " that the whole course of reformation 
which these measures illustrate is the sober second thought 
of the American peojile." He held then, as he holds 
now, that the repeal of these obnoxious and partisan 
statutes, these invidious test oaths, this system of federal 
supervision of elections, this comj^ulsory attendance of 
the military at the polls, was a proper issue upon which to 
go before the people at the presidential election, an issue 
which M'ould command the support of a large majority of 
the voters. He believed that the repeals sought to be 
obtained were measures of the greatest importance. As 
he said in this speech of June 5, 1879, on the juror's test- 
oath question : " They touch the question of personal 
liberty of the citizen; they touch questions of constitu- 
tional rights, the dearest and the closest to liberty-loving 
men." Kor did he approve of the course of the Presi- 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. 63 

dent in vetoing these bills upon the mere technicality of 
form, and without taking any notice of their subject- 
matter. He was, as he said, opposed to the policy of " in- 
grafting matters of general legislation upon appropriation 
bills," had frequently protested against it, and had often 
but vainly endeavored " to procure from the Republican 
majority that overwhelmed us here a recognition of the 
fact that such methods of legislation were irregular and 
vicious." But it was too late to object to such things in 
Congress, and especially too late for Republicans to ob- 
ject. " I may say," said Mr. Bayard, " that there are no 
more important measures of general legislation now stand- 
ing on the statute-book of this country than those which 
have been placed there by the vehicles of general appro- 
priation bills, and that no such thing ever occurred until 
now in American history that the method of parliamen- 
tary proceeding was made a cause for presidential criti- 
cism and rejection." The " misjoinder " of general legis- 
lation and appropriations was not objectionable on con- 
stitutional grounds, but, because leading to confusion, un- 
certainty, and embarrassment. As to this particular meas- 
ure of repeal, Mr. Bayard expressed his opinion of the 
need for it in a strain of earnest and fervent eloquence. 
It was called for in justice and in equity, by the nature 
of our institutions, by the validity of our faith in our 
common manhood, by our belief in the principle of trial 
by jury and our respect for the letter and the spirit of 
the Constitution. Yet, being such, the President had 
vetoed the bill, and there were not two thirds of the mem- 
bers of Congress willing to pass the bill in the face of his 
objection. What then ? The veto power of the Presi- 
dent was his own. He was an independent branch of the 
government, and it did not become Democrats to attempt 



64 LIFE OF THOMAS F. UAYAKD. 

to coerce President Hayes as the Kepublicans had done 
by President Johnson. The President was responsible 
for the exerciee of the veto power not to Congress, but to 
the people of the country. In Mr. Bayard's words : 
" lie is responsible to the House of Eepresentatives for 
any malfeasance in his office ; and to them is given the 
poNver to impeach him, and the Senate, upon trial, to re- 
move him, should they consider that his acts have brought 
him within the constitutional prohibition ; but I am very 
clear that the checks and balances created by our Consti- 
tution do prohibit, and are meant to prohibit, any invasion 
of his just prerogatives ; and no exigency, no sense of 
the abstract injustice or unwisdom of his action, should 
control me in approving or urging any course of iiTCgu- 
larity in order to overcome what I believe to be the errors 
or the faults of his administration. Equally unworthy 
and unwarranted would be any attempt at coercion of the 
Executive by Congress ; and such suggestions are only 
weak and idle." 

After denying that the President had any right or 
justification in assuming that he was the object of coer- 
cion, and in impeaching the motives aud conduct of Con- 
gress, Mr. Bayard added : " Sir, the only coercion I would 
apply is that of a quickened conscience, based upon a 
comprehension of the real duties of the great office he 
holds, the coercion of public opinion demanding great 
motives from men in high places. It is the; coercion of 
his oath to obey the Constitution, and not the behests of 
party or the commands of those who have never hereto- 
fore treated him with even ordinary respect." 

Mr. Bayard then went on to say that he held the in- 
vasion of one department of the government by another 
to be utterly unwarranted, dangerous, and to be strictl) 



J 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. G5 

guarded against. Differences must be met in a spirit of 
comity and mutual accommodation, not in a spirit of ob- 
struction. "I hold," said he, "that no spirit but that 
of high public duty should actuate any man possessed of 
public power ; that personal exasperation, official bicker- 
ing, partisan revenges and manoeuvres have no just place 
in the execution of the trust of public power, wherever it 
may be placed." Mr. Hayes, it was quite apparently Mr. 
Bayard's opinion, could not criticise Congress with a good 
grace. The fact that there was such a wide difference in 
political sentiment between him and Congress gave him 
no right to speak, but rather would admonish any modest 
man in his position to hold his tongue. " We know," 
said Mr. Bayard, " at least those who compose the major- 
ity of the Senate and of the House do know, and we do 
believe, that the sentiment which caused the election of a 
Democratic majority of the present Senate and House 
of Kepresentatives also elected a Democratic President. 
Eight down in the heart of every man composing the 
majority in either branch of Congress lies the solemn be- 
lief that would induce him to walk readily to that desk, 
and with uplifted hand, or his hand upon the Holy Book, 
swear that he believes that the individual who now holds 
the executive office was not elected to it by the votes of 
the American people, but that he holds an office justly 
belonging to another. 

" I have nothing to say in referring to the history of the 
events of 187Y, when, having a single eye to the welfare 
of the American people, believing in the necessity for the 
existence and support of a government of laws, believing 
that it was better, rather than that strife and confusion 
should throw this government into the hands of the body 
of men who stood only too ready to clutch it by the throat 



66 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and put it under tlie mailed hand of armed power — M'e 
proposed and preferred that the forms of law should be 
created, should be followed, even though the gravest dis- 
appointment arose ; and we believe that the result was the 
overthrow of the will of the American people expressed 
at the polls. 

" Those are the facts, and I believe history will record 
them as beyond dispute. Such was the honor of those 
who did maintain this ground in a period of profound ex- 
citement, in a period when they were convinced of the 
grossest injustice, who did believe that the public opinion 
of the American people would in the end be a safer re- 
fuge than the rush to arms for the purpose of vindicating 
a clear right. Upon that faith we have rested, ' that truth 
was omnipotent, and that public justice was certain.' On 
that we stood then and on that we stand now ; and upon 
that great issue the American people will be called upon 
at a day not long distant to decide. 

" But these facts only conduce to what ? They ren- 
der our situation even more difficult and trying. The 
Congress of the United States have their duties. They 
are endeavoring to execute them faithfully and well. 
They are endeavoring to shape legislation in accordance 
with public sentiment, so that this country shall be free, 
and safe, and prosperous, and ha]ipy, that the Union shall 
be perfectly and really restored, that the public credit 
shall be guarded and maintained, that all the functions of 
this great government shall be duly exercised, and pro- 
ceed properly in their execution. That is our great wish ; 
but if there is in our propositions of themselves anything 
wrong, if they are unwise instead of being wise, if they 
are unpatriotic instead of being patriotic, we have the 
opinion and conscience of the American people to appeal 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. G7 

to. All that I would ask is that they may clearly com- 
prehend the issues whicli lie before them. It is upon 
their intelligence, their sense of virtue, it is upon their 
capacity to comprehend aright, and distinguish between 
the just and the unjust, that we form our chief hopes. 

" But, sir, suppose in these efforts we meet obstruction, 
suppose in these efforts we meet the interposition of the 
constitutional powders of the Executive, and he stands in 
the way and says, with or without reason, ' I execute this 
power ; I will taunt you, I will harass you, I will en- 
deavor to inflame you and place you in a false position 
before your countrymen,' what is your answ^er? That 
that may be his measure of duty; but, thank God, he 
can not impose the measure of ours. Our responsibility 
and our sense of duty are measured only by ourselves, 
only by our own conscience. 

" This government is placed, so far as the legislative 
power is concerned, in the hands of the majorities com- 
posed of the Democratic members, and we propose so to 
conduct it that the people of the country shall feel that 
honesty in the first place has marked every law, that the 
lobby that so long here infested the corridors of the Cap- 
itol and controlled the legislation has been routed and put 
an end to, that the treasury shall be protected, that every 
branch of the government shall be amply supplied and 
maintained with vigor, economy, and justice. This is our 
proposition. 

" Our first duty is to continue this government. Our 
first duty is to supply everything needful for the honor 
and welfare and protection of this government and all 
of its people. Is our measure of that duty to be taught 
lis by a hostile, a harassing, and an obstructive executive? 
Sir, our measure of patriotic duty is not to be dictated by 
4 



08 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYAKD. 

liim. It is to be measured hj the oath that we took tc 
support this government. It is to be measured by ouf 
own discretion as to what the safety and the welfare of 
the government require at our hands. 

" Mr. President, I sometimes fear that this great com-J 
plicated machinery of the civilized government of a richl 
and populous country is not fully comprehended. It] 
seems to me, when I consider all the forms of property,' 
they lie only in the shape of accumulated credits, where 
once what we called wealth meant nothing but cattle or 
arms or jewels, or the precious metals. The property of 
a civilized country is the creation of its laws, and is de- 
pendent for its existence on those laws. The great body 
of its property is its credit in all its forms, which only 
by the close observance of law and maintenance of order 
can retain their force and vitality and value. This coun- 
try is no longer a mere collection of Indian villages, in 
which peace and war was a matter of every day's chance 
occurrence. Confusion in a government like ours is 
pregnant with the deepest danger and with the greatest 
disaster and suffering. You can not throw out of gear 
for one moment such complicated machinery without pro- 
ducing almost irremediable injury and wide-spread distress. 
Therefore, the man who idly talks about stopping supplies 
to the government, or who disingenuously or dishonestly 
charges others with endeavoring to stop the supplies of the 
government, either suggests a great public crime, or he 
makes false accusation of one against his neighbor. I 
hold it to be the great mission of the organization called 
the Democratic party to maintain this government in all 
its parts, and, under the limitation of its written charter 
of powers, to protect it against all enemies, domestic as 
well as foreign, to prevent confusion from rushing in 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. HAYARD'S VIEWS. QO 

upon it and distnrbing its orderly progress, I do not 
hold it to be in tlie power of any executive, unfriendly 
and unjust as he may be to the principles and the objects, 
and to the p^rsotmel of that organization, to lessen or 
alter its measure of duty, or place it in a false position 
before the American people. 

" If I did not believe that party was to be trusted I 
would not belong to it. If I did not believe that the 
credit, the safety, the welfare, and honor of the American 
people were safe in its hands I v/ould abandon it. But 
shall it be that an officer accidentally vested, and vested, 
as I have said, against our belief of right, with the enor- 
mous powers which have accumulated and grown around 
the executive office, shall succeed in placing this great 
party, with all its patriotic objects and intents, in a po- 
sition of suspicion and doubt before their fellow country- 
men ? Ah, sir, it will require two to make up that issue. 
It is a false, dishonest, untruthful, disingenuous attempt 
to slander his neighbors. No, sir, this government shall 
move on. It shall be supplied regularly and fully. We 
will put an end to political jobbery wherever it appears ; 
we will reform all the wrong and injustice that are caused 
by bad laws that we may; we will supply everything 
needful for the strong, vigorous, just exercise of every 
constitutional power in every branch of the public service, 
and we do not mean that any obstructive executive, any 
unfair political opponent, occupying power against our be- 
lief of right, but to which we submit under the forms of 
law, shall pervert the truth or raise false issues between 
us and our countrymen. 

" Therefore it is that I have said this much, and it may 
save me the trouble of repeating it again. I have said it 
in connection with a measure to which the Executive has 



70 LIFE OF. THOMAS F. RAYARD. 

returned no objection. I can not imagine that tliere will 
be objection to it. I do not mean to say that tliere can 
be none manufactured — for when there is a will, a way 
will always be found for anything— I will not say that 
men's minds may not be so constituted, or so controlled by 
their prejudices and passions, that they may not find good 
reasons exactly in the opposite direction from those I have 
endeavored to state. But what I ask, and all that I ask, 
is that the issues now forming between the two houses 
of Congress, as represented by their dominant majorities, 
and the executive branch of the government, may be 
plainly, and clearly, and fairly understood by our fellow 
countrymen, because, when they are so understood by 
them, I am satisfied they will find reason only for re- 
newed confidence and increased respect for the party 
whose motives have been so unjustly called in question, 
in regard to the grant of supplies for the support of our 
government, and who are honestly seeking to reform 
abuses, and redress the actual grievances of the American 
people." 

These are instances of what Mr. Bayard meant when 
he said : " If my party de]>arts from its principles, I can 
take my hat and go home." 

No man knows better than Thomas F. Bayard what 
Democratic principles are. No man has studied them 
more closely. No man has more constantly waited for 
conviction before he gave adhesion to these principles, 
and consequently none can hold to them with a firmer 
faith. No man has defined these principles and doctrines 
more accurately and logically, and none has conformed to 
them more rigidly. There is to-day no better expounder 
(»f the Constitution and of the teachings of the fathers in 
relation to it than ]\[r. Bayard. Plain, practical, straight- 



"LEADLNTr QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. 71 

forward, he goes to the heart of a matter, and gives 
always the solid, substantial reason for his votes. These 
reasons rest upon the foundations of common sense, upon 
axioms of law and equity, upon the reasonable sense of 
the Constitution. Stated, they become the form and sub- 
stance of Democratic doctrine, and his speeches might 
be taken for a text-book of pure and unadulterated De- 
mocracy, not " Joffersonian," nor " Jacksonian," but con- 
stitutional. 

Thus, in his late speech * on the bill for the, restora- 
tion of General Fitz-Jolm Porter to the army, as in a 
great many other speeches, Mr. Bayard uttered his warn- 
ing against the danger of the growing tendency to cen- 
tralization of power! 

" There is," he said " a spirit of centralization ; there 
are centripetal forces at work that in my judgment the 
people of this country would be most wise to check, and 
it is well that the centrifugal forces should be set in 
motion, in order that the orderly distribution of j^ower 
intended by those who founded this government should 
once more prevail, because they did intend that liberty 
should be protected by preventing the undue concentra- 
tion of powers in any one iiand, or in any one department 
of the government." 

In the same speech he called attention to the danger 
of even talking of the equality in dignity of military 
courts and military commissions with the judicial courts 
of the United States. This was a danger which our fore- 
fathers realized, and provided against in the Constitution, 
" They made," said Mr. Bayard, " even before the forma- 
tion of our present government, their immortal protest 
against the British king, and among their reasons for 

* March 8, 1880. 



72 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

claiming independence of his rule was that he had affect- 
ed to render the military independent of or snperior to 
the civil power." " Sir," he added, " there have been 
many suggestions in this debate, many things that have 
occurred in the course of this debate, there is too much 
in the air nowadays throughout this country, that docs 
tend to aggrandize the military power to the danger of 
civil and constitutional liberty. We have heard here in 
effect proclaimed that military courts and courts-martial 
are in substance -part of the judicial j^ower of the United 
States, that they have equal dignity, that they are as 
wholly irreversible in their decisions as those of the judi- 
cial branch of the government. I dissent in toto from 
such a proposition. I say, on the contrary, that military 
rule is obnoxious to the American people, and it is justly 
so to all people who would remain free." Then he goes 
on to show how, while the military is a jjart of the execu- 
tive arm, the judiciary is a separate, independent branch 
of the government. 

This power of definition, as a means of setting forth 
the limitations of the Constitution, is a very distinctly 
marked characteristic of Mr. Bayard. In consequence of 
it all his speeches bristle with pregnant sentences, which 
shed a glow of electric light upon the subject. His illus- 
trations are arguments in themselves ; his very tropes are 
syllogisms compressed. "When Senator Morton, in oppos- 
ing the admission of Mississippi in 1870, asserted that 
"definitions progress," and that, in consequence of the 
thirteenth and fourteenth amendments, the constitutional 
guaranties in 1880 were different from what they were 
in 1787, Mr. Bayard said that the expression was the 
most alarming proposition — " the largest stride toward 
legislative omnipotence" that had yet been heard of. 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS, 73 

" Why," said he, " its result would be to resolve this Con- 
gress into a committee of public safety. It would be to 
pass that senatorial decree of ancient Rome, that it be- 
hooved the Senate to look to the safety of the republic ; 
and after that what remains of civil or constitutional lib- 
erty?" 

Speaking of " reconstruction," Mr. Bayard said : " Af- 
ter all, sir, what bald humbugs and wretched shams are 
your reconstructed governments, and your 'resuscitated 
States,' as they have been termed in the course of this de- 
bate ! What honest man but must laugh in scorn at these 
specimens of radical manufacture set up here as repub- 
lican States ! The machinery of our own constitution of 
government, designed only for operation through the ex- 
ercise of the will of a free people, has been distorted and 
perverted to purposes of tyranny and usurpation. Hence 
the failure of all these schemes of reconstruction ; hence 
they will always fail, for you can not ingraft the princi- 
ples of despotic poioer on the tree of liberty ! You may 
mutilate that tree, and insert your unnatural scions, but 
they will never grow ! " 

" Loyalty," Mr. Bayard calls " that mysterious word, 
that many-colored garment of political favoritism." It 
was in 1870 that Mr. Bayard, with a prescience which 
the holders of Virginia and Tennessee and Louisiana and 
Carolina bonds must sigh to think they did not recognize, 
declared the newly constituted negro voters to be " nat- 
ural-horn repudiatorsP The Republican party to-day 
affects to despise the alliance which Senator-elect Mahone, 
of Virginia, offers them. They can not dSny, however, 
that Mahone and the " readjusters " owe their supremacy 
in the Old Dominion to this race into whose hands they 
recklessly thrust the suffrage, giving practically the con- 



74 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

trol of property to a class not only ignorant of the laws 
and semi-barbarous, but creators of inevitable insolvency 
by tlie mere bent of their " lavish, simple-minded, thrift- 
less, easy-going natures." Mr. Bayard's moral texture 
was never shown in all its strength and purity better than 
in the unconscious enunciation of his creed in the little 
speech on equal rights in public schools in the District of 
Columbia. Said he, '' Minorities may have terrors to 
gome men, but I have been in one too long, and / have 
found too much of comfort in heing there, to let such prop- 
ositions have any terror for me. A man who makes the 
performance of duty his object, I am satisfied, will be 
happy, whether he be successful or not." 

Mr. Bayard's intellect is, like his moral nature, pure 
and clear as a bell. He thinks largely and broadly as 
becomes a man upon the high plane on which he moves. 
Speaking of the changes of party and individual opinion 
in regard to currency mattery, he said, " What was truth 
then is truth to-day. The laws of health do not change 
because men become sick — indeed, it is then they must be 
most carefully consulted and obeyed." The credit sys- 
tem which finally exploded in 1873, he called " the system 
that had stimulated men to believe that the great primeval 
decree that men should eat bread by the sweat of their 
face was in some way repealed, and that people could 
grow rich without labor, and Congress could ordain that 
people should be prosperous and happy without following 
natural laws." " Heaven help us," he said, in his harvest- 
home speech at Newport, Delaware, "if the time shall 
come when tht; value of every man's farm and every con- 
tract he makes is to be determined by some accidental 
majority in Congress that may change every two years." 
"At the bottom of all human dealings," he said, "lie cer- 



I 



LEADING QUESTIONS — MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. 75 

tain simple principles implanted there by the Author of 
our being. One of these is truth — nothing that is not 
based upon truth can long subsist, and honesty is but one 
form of truth. The reason why gold and silver are ac- 
cepted among men as a standard of value is not merely 
because of their attributes, their indestructibility, their 
durability, but because these metals truthfull}- represent 
so much human labor expended in obtaining them, and 
are worth so much as commodities, because it costs so 
much to procure them. If gold and silver are adulterated 
they are no longer true, but false." " We live in sad and 
troublous times," is Mr. Bayard's opinion, " and we must 
live through them like honest men. On shipboard, when 
the storm is raging, and hope seems almost dead, the cry 
is often heard, 'Break open the spirit-room!' but the 
true cajjtain will have a firm guard at the door to keep 
the men back, to save his ship and save the lives of the 
wild and foolish creatures who invoke their own de- 
struction." 

Thomas F. Bayard has shovrn himself to be this 
" good captain," whenever the hour of peril forced him 
to take the lead. He showed it in the case of the Elec- 
toral Commission ; in the case of the debates and votes 
on the appropriation bills in the extra session of ISYO ; 
in all the financial issues since 1879, in which period so 
many of his fellow Democrats have gone astray, their 
heads lost in the fogs and bewilderment, and their feet 
mixed in the quicksands, of the " Ohio idea " ; and he 
showed it in every contest between the majority and 
minority of Congress on the issue of federal usurpations 
and violations of the Constitution. 

It would be easy to draw up the chart by which this 
" good captain " does his plain sailing — the platform of 



76 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

this true, loyal, pure Democrat, which, indeed, is the only 
platform upon which true, loyal, honest Democracy can 
find room to plant itself. Integrity, honesty, economy, 
these three words sum it all up. 

Fli'st. Mr. Bayard clings with religious deference to 
the Constitution as it was understood by the founders, 
and has been constnied by their successors, and to a strict 
and rigorous limitation of the delegated powers of the 
government, to the end that one branch may not suffo- 
cate the other, and the States disappear under the wheels 
of the Juggernaut of centralization. It is Mr. Bayard's 
doctrine that " The framers of our government sought to 
limit power, and accomplished their end by the distribu- 
tion of powder. The very distribution of power was to 
work its limitation." 

Second. He does not approve of class legislation, 
which always follows from the consolidation of power. 
Power, he holds, is always stealing from the many to the 
few, and class legislation promotes this. Whether it takes 
the shape of tariffs for protection, the creation of national 
banks, the subsidizing of roads and steamship lines with 
grants of lands or money, he is hostile to it, because it tends 
to break down the safeguards of freedom, to increase the 
expenses of government, make the rich richer and the 
poor poorer. 

Third. Honest money he demands, because Congress 
had no right to give ns any other. " The Good Book 
tells us," he says, in one of his open-air speeches, ' Re- 
move not the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have 
set,' and, in the name of our fathers, of Wasliington, of 
Hamilton, of Jefferson, of Madison, of Webster, of Jack- 
son, and of Calhoun, I ask that the ancient landmark of 
an honest money be not removed." He demands it also 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. 77 

for the sake of the poor man, robbed of his earnings by 
fraudulent money, and in order to enable our productive 
classes to compete with Europe. " Our competition with 
other nations," he says, " is close, and growing closer ; we 
must buckle down to our work, and neglect nothing. We 
have honest Aveights and measures fixed by law ; let us in- 
sist upon the restoration of the gkeat measure of mea- 
sures, AN HONEST MONEY." 

Fourth. An honest and frugal administration and 
civil service. " We are in debt," Mr. Bayard says, " and 
have got to pay it or be disgraced ; and I will not admit 
there is any alternative to the American people on that 
subject. Now, we must study rules of economy to do 
this." Dishonest money and a government devoid of 
respect for the limitations of the Constitution have led to 
extravagance in government which must be reformed. 
" A habit of dealing with large sums in a reckless way " 
(so Mr. Bayard puts it), " in other words, an utter loss of 
the sense of values has resulted, and the man who loses 
the sense of relative values is a most unsafe guardian of 
the public treasury. There has grown up a vast body of 
civil officials, appointed under a system which can not 
bear "examination — a civil service which, of itself, threat- 
ens almost the permanence and success of republican in- 
stitutions. The idea that the public offices of the country 
were established for the benefit of the persons who fill 
them is wholly wrong. The office is instituted for the 
public service ; it is not for the benefit of the man who 
holds it ; it is for the benefit of the people whose laws cre- 
ated it and whose service is to be performed. The good 
and faithful servant of the public is entitled to be secured 
and maintained on the same principles precisely as the 
good and faithful servant of a private employer. The 



Y8 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

man wlio does his duty in public oftice owes nothing to 
the public. lie has rendered them back quid iwo quo. 
He has given them that which they were entitled to, and 
they have paid him no more than justly was his right. 
But when office has been, as we see and know, dependent, 
not upon the excellence of the manner in which its duties 
were performed, but is made a reward for mere partisan 
exertions, sometimes services which would not bear close 
examination ; and when the holder of the office depends 
upon tlie pleasure of the appointing power or the whim 
and caprice of the party to which he must look for main- 
tenance in his place, you may be assured that his duties 
will not be the first and chief point of his consideration. 
But rather that his time will be spent in contriving how 
little he may do for the post, and how he may best con- 
tinue in the enjoyment of his official emoluments. 

" An intelligent Englishman, holding a high station in 
his country's government, in discussing this question not 
long ago, told me he would be perfectly willing to under- 
take the conduct of our departmental business, conduct- 
ing what may be called the entire clerical business of the 
great departments of our government with one third the 
number of our present officials, provided he could 'pro- 
cure the same class that were employed by his govern- 
ment at home, men who had been trained for the work, 
and who knew if they did their duty they need not fear 
being displaced, but would find a long life of ])ublic ser- 
vice met at the end with pension, reward, diniini^^hed la- 
bor, and public thanks. 

" I have been one of your representatives at Wash- 
ington for some years past. I can well attest the great 
pressure there is for official appointment, and the evil, it 
strikes me, is not in the fact of the salaries being too 



LEADING QUESTIONS.— MR. BAYARD'S VIEWS. YQ 

high. On the contrary, I thhik, for the character of the 
service demanded, they are, in many instances, less than 
they ought to be. It is to the superfluous number of 
persons employed, and their precarious tenure, that we 
owe our imperfect system which has led to such enormous 
expense." 

Fifth. No subsidies ; no waste ; sound laws, honestly 
administered ; the civil power supreme in the state ; the 
fostering of that spirit of amity and conciliation, of mu- 
tual deference and concession which the peculiarities of 
our political situation render indispensable, and without 
which the Union can not be restored — these things com- 
prise Mr. Bayard's platform, as declared in his speeches 
and emphasized in his actions. In both word and act he 
is frank and sincere to such a degree that all he says and 
all he does count at their full value. Mr. Bayard never 
seeks to accomplish his objects by indirection. He has a 
noble scorn of the art of " looking one way and rowing 
another " in which politicians are supposed to excel. Still 
more does he despise the tribe of Pecksniff and all others 
who make pretense for pelf. " I do not spell humanity 
with a large H," said he, when voting for an appropria- 
tion to relieve the starving freedmen gathered at Washing- 
ton, " nor freedom with a capital F ; but I am, nevertheless, 
willing to do what I can to relieve distress and suffering 
where I find them." 



CHAPTER VL 

THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 

In the excited times that preceded the outbreak of the 
war of 1861 there were two — parties we can not call them, 
for they were not held together by party ties, nor can we 
call them sections, for they were not separated by geo- 
graphical boundaries — two aggregates of men opposing 
each other, and actuated by diametrically antagonistic 
principles and purposes. These were the peace men and 
the war men on both sides of the line. 

The war men of the two sections, led by such men as 
he who said at the South, " Give me the sword, or I will 
take it myself," and he who declared at the North that 
"■ the Union was not worth a rush without blood-letting," 
bitterly hostile as they were in other respects, agreed in 
this, that they wanted war rather than peace, and so played 
into each others hands with the skill and concert of two 
partners in a game. Each angry expression, each taunt 
or threat, each lawless act of the one scored a point for 
the other, and was adroitly used to inflame the popular 
mind and draw recruits to their ranks. 

The peace men of both the Republican and Democratic 
parties were those who believed that war was no remedy 
for the evils they felt or feared, and who held the only 
remedy to be in constitutional legislation and the good 
sense and patriotism of the whole people, if the madness 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 81 

of the hour could be cured. But to cure this madness 
was what the others least desired. All their efforts were 
directed to exasperate it ; and to compass this they used 
every instrument — the public forum, the press, the stump, 
the pencil, and the pulpit. "With the fire-eaters of the 
South we have nothing here to do ; but the radicals of the 
North gained the masses to their side and established 
themselves in power by persuading them that the war was 
only to save the Constitution and the Union — the Consti- 
tution which they had repeatedly broken, and the Union 
of which they had openly declared their abhorrence. No 
wonder that the calmer patriots, who saw the spirit that 
ruled the hour, dreaded the result, and feared that, how- 
ever the war might end, constitutional liberty would be 
lost, never to be regained. For this in chief was the ob- 
ject of their devotion, and the Union so far as it was a 
means to this, for which end, as the Constitution recites, 
the Union was established. Liberty without union would 
be weakness and discord, union without liberty would be 
even a worse evil — organized despotism. The duty, then, 
of all true patriots, throughout the war and after the war, 
was to resist all encroachments upon constitutional liberty, 
and to shield as far as might be the whole people from a 
worse fate than the sword had brought upon the defeated 
States. 

The war ended. The conquered South accepted the 
decision of the sword. There were then two courses open 
to the party in poM^er : the one, to heal, as far as they 
could be healed, the festering wounds, to quench the em- 
bers of hate, to restore constitutional liberty, and bring 
back peace to all hearts and prosperity to all homes. But 
this course was not chosen by the radical leaders. Pre- 
ferring party success to the country's welfare, and know- 



82 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

iiig that a return of good feeling would terminate their 
tenure of power, all their efforts were exerted to keep up 
the war in other forms, and to prevent that restored union 
which had been their professed object. No means were 
left untried to keep alive the passions of the war, and so 
to fasten their own grip upon power while these passions 
lasted that it should afterward be impossible to wrest it 
from them. Under these two heads may be summed up 
the whole monstrous mass of radical leo^islation and ad- 
ministration from 1865 to 1876. Never once, though 
often challenged, has the radical party announced the prin- 
ciples by which it proposes to lead this union of States 
in the paths of peace and prosperity. Measures to serve 
a temporary purpose they have in plenty, but, when asked 
for a platform, they rant about " saving the Union," which 
they did not save, and " wave the bloody shirt." To de- 
nounce all Democrats as secret or open traitors, to fix 
upon whole States the stigma of " brigands," to rekindle 
hate and suspicion, to stifle the voice of the people, to 
subordinate the civil to the military power, to make the 
federal legislature a council of war, the judiciary a mili- 
tary court, and the executive a provost-marshal-general 
— tliis has been the radical policy. To these ends have 
been directed the reconstruction acts, the force bills, the 
Ku-klux legislation, the packing of courts with partisan 
juries in the box and pliant judges on the bench, the ex- 
pulsion of honest officers, and the enrichment and exalta- 
tion of knaves. From this policy, as its natural conse- 
(juence, came that saturnalia of lawlessness, violence, 
fraud, and robbery that disgraced the eight years of 
Grant's administration. 

Against all these things, and each as it arose, Mr. 
Bayard has always steadily and fearlessly uplifted his 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 83 

voice, not as a partisan opposing pJii'ty measures, but 
as a citizen and legislator of the whole country, resisting 
measures that tended to its ruin. Whenever the choice 
lay between hatred and enmity, between law and breach 
of law, between good faith and bad faith, between the 
Constitution and violations of it, between liberty and the 
•encroachments of power, between honesty and fraud, men 
could always predict with unerring certainty where Bay- 
ard was to be found. His attachment to the union of 
the States was not reiterated so vociferously in cheap and 
empty rhetoric as was the fashion among some, with 
whom, perhaps, there was greater necessity. He was 
never a dealer in line sentimentalities, and, instead of brag- 
ging of his patriotism, preferred to show it by a steady 
devotion to the Constitution and the principles on which 
the Union was founded. He preferred patriotic legisla- 
tion to patriotic flourishes, nor desired to boast in words 
of that which he could best illustrate by his actions. 

Yet, with all his loftiness of principle, there has been 
no impracticable quixotism, no aiming at things palpably 
impossible, or refusing a lesser good because a greater 
was not to be had. He has always known that the duty 
of a legislator is to do the best that he can, not the best 
that he would. 

The only course open to the upright conservative 
statesmen in those days, when such formed but a feeble 
minority in Congress, was steadily to offer an exemplary, 
if ineffective, opposition to all unsound legislation ; to 
repeat, though to unwilling ears, the true principles on 
which the government had been founded ; and to warn his 
countrymen, on every fit occasion, how far they were 
drifting from their true course, and the rocks toward 
which they were driving. All legislation for party pur- 



84 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

poses, everything that savored of chicanery or sharp 
practice, everything that tended to lower the standard of 
public honor, he boldly denounced. Thus, when it was 
urged that, owing to the loose wording of the law impos- 
ing a tax on tobacco, the treasury was likely to lose heav- 
ily, to avoid which a modification was proposed, which, 
under certain circumstances, might entail the payment of * 
a double tax, he said : " I can see how this government 
may afford to lose money, but I can not see how it can 
afford to lose character, and fail to keep good faith with 
the citizen .... I trust that the United States govern- 
ment, in dealing with the people, will always set the great 
example of the uttermost good faith with those who have 
striven to keep their obligations with it ; and, if under 
existing laws there be imperfections in ascertaining the 
proper amount of tax to be levied, I think that the gov- 
ernment should suffer that, and not the people who have 
striven to do their duty toward it." * 

Measures of temporary expediency he was equally 
averse to, knowing that the permanence and fixedness of 
the laws were next in importance to their justice. Thus, 
when, in 1872, a bill had been introduced taking the duty 
off tea and coffee, Mr. Bayard opposed it on the ground 
that it was " a piece of the demagogy of politics " ; that 
those who introduced it knew well that, while it might 
serve a temporary purpose, it would certainly be rescind- 
ed before long ; and that, above all things, the business 
men of the country "had a right to ask that stabiHty 
sliould be an element of the laws." The whole com- 
merce of the country, he said, had suffered more by the 
" wavering and staggering " of Congress on the subject 

* Remarks on the tobacco tax, April 8, 18C9. 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 85 

of these very duties than from any imposition, however 
heavy. 

At the same time that lie opposed this piece of dema- 
gogy, he reiterated liis adhesion to the sound Demo- 
cratic doctrine of a revenue tariff. " I consider," he goes 
on to say,* " that, as a matter of justice to the business 
of the vs^hole country, we should not proceed to deal by 
piecemeal with the revenues of the country. . . . My 
own hope is that the tariff" will be reduced to a revenue 
standard. I believe that for that purpose, and that pur- 
pose only, is it justified." 

In the same way, and on the same ground that open- 
ness, fairness, and good faith, expected of all, were above 
all to be expected of statesmen legislating for the com- 
mon good, has he shown himself the unwavering foe of 
caucus legislation. The caucus, in some form or other, 
is probably an unavoidable feature of party government. 
It is necessary, with regard to grave measures, that the 
party shall act in concert ; and, so far as a caucus does no 
more than provide for this, and equal privileges are al- 
lowed to the opposing party, it can not be objected to. 
But the caucus was abused by the majority so as to form 
a secret legislature, where, wath closed doors, measures 
were concocted, every man's part assigned him, and they 
were then sprung upon the legislative body without 
warning, and rushed through without time allowed for 
consideration or debate. 

Speaking of this strategy, he says : " I can not regard 
with respect or approval, and I must consider it as de- 
structive of the spirit of our constitutional form of govern- 
ment, that it has pleased the majority in this, as in other 

* Kemarks, April 30, 1872. 



86 LIl'^E OF THOMAS F. BAYAKD. 

cases, to consider grave public questions in the secret 
councils of party alone, and then suddenly to j)romulgate 
them by party orders, and call upon their associates in 
this chamber instantly to act upon tliem before they can 
be known, before they can be fully comprehended, or 
that proper preparation made for their deliberate consid- 
eration which every man in this chamber owes to a ques- 
tion before he casts his representative vote upon it. . . . 
The preparation of public measures in party caucus, and 
their enactment into law without public explanation or 
debate, is a defeat of the spirit, if not the letter, of our 
government." 

It may be seen from these illustrations, and will more 
fully appear in other pages of this sketch, how far Mr. 
Bayard stands above the ordinary partisan leader. To 
meet innovation by counter-innovation, to defeat a mea- 
sure by shifty finesse, to win a party triumph by adroit 
jugglery — such was never his idea of statesmanship, nor 
his mode of opposition. He has never forgotten that he 
was a legislator for the wdiole country ; and, if he has de- 
sired the success of one party rather than another, it is 
because he believes the fundamental policy of that party 
to be the best for the people of all parties and of all sec- 
tions. His hope and aim have been to bring back the 
whole people to the ancient regard for constitutional lib- 
erty, in which alone there is safety ; to their ancient re- 
spect for law, which can never be recovered unless the 
law-makers show themselves w^orthy of confidence and re- 
spect ; to their former wise dread of the usurpation by 
one branch of the government of the functions or powei-s 
of another, or of the enlargement of powers which the 
Constitution has most wisely and cautiously limited. 

By such ways has he endeavored to chock the head- 



I 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 87 

long course of (lie party in power, and to pave the way 
for a restoration of sounder government and better foot- 
ing. Amid all the turmoil of party warfare he has kept 
in view the true issues of the great struggle, on the solu- 
tion of which our political destinies depend. These issues 
are so clearly put in his speech of October 4, 1872, at 
"Wilmington, that we quote at some length : 

" The issue which I tell you has been formed in this 
country, in one shape or another always asserting itself 
since the formation of the government, is the issue be- 
tween the tendencies of power, wherever it be placed, to 
increase and centralize itself, and the corresponding effort 
under our Constitution to prevent that centralization and 
insist upon a distribution of power. Let me endeavor to 
place this idea clearly before you. 

" The men who formed this government had, as you 
know, suffered from arbitrary power. They had been 
coerced by an arbitrary government. They took up arms 
to relieve themselves, and, under God's providence, were 
successful. Their sufferings you know ; they are part of 
the history of your country, and I am sure it ought to be 
a most important lesson for us in all time. Having suf- 
fered from arbitrary power, the men who laid the foun- 
dations of this government determined that they would 
put limitations upon power, no matter where that power 
was deposited. They knew the weakness of the human 
heart ; they knew that if you give a man power he will 
exercise it for the most advantage to himself and in ways 
not intended ; and they therefore determined that in the 
Constitution of the government of the United States 
there should be no grant of power that was not limited, 
no such thing as absolute power, no power that was to be 
without limitation both as to its extent and duration. 



88 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

How did they accomplish that ? By distributing powers, 
by dividing our government into different departments, 
all of which should be coordinate and equal, none of 
which should be absolute or superior. 

" The national legislature was created with ample 
power to make laws, but not absolutely, for the President 
had his right to veto. There was also the check of a 
written Constitution that those laws should not pass the 
subjects or the extent of power conferred by its provi- 
sions ; but, in case they did, there was the other great 
check upon them, the judicial department. Even if the 
Congress and the President assented to the law, it was to 
be subjected to the test whether, in the minds of the judi- 
ciary of the country, it was, or was not, an infringement 
of the limitations imposed by the written charter. 

" They further distributed power over this country so 
that the national executive, the national legislature, and 
the national judiciary, all checking each other, should 
not even when combined be omnipotent, because they 
left to our system of States the whole mass of powers 
not delegated and enumerated in the grant of powers to 
the general government. The general government had 
none but certain delegated powers ; all the rest were ex- 
pressly reserved to the States ; they were diffused broadly 
throughout the land, and they were intended by that dis- 
tribution to be a check upon each other and a check upon 
tlie federal government, and the federal government was 
intended to be a check upon them. Our fathers arranged 
this system with perfect harmony, so that in the mind of 
any honest man, determined to obey both the laws of the 
United States passed in pursuance of the Constitution and 
the laws of the States which are subjected to the State 
constitutions and to the federal Constitution also, there can 



THE UNIOX AND THE CONSTITUTION. 89 

not be a question of conflict Miich can not be relieved by a 
fair and candid examination of these different instruments. 

" Do you understand me ? The framers of our govern- 
ment sought to limit ;power, and accomplished their end 
hy the distribution of power. The very distribution of 
power was to work its limitation. 

" Kow, gentlemen, what is the result ? If you destroy 
tlie distribution, then you destroy the limitation, and the 
power becomes consolidated and absolute. It is this issue 
coming up in our history at different times, but never 
before looming up in the dreadful j)roportions which it 
has now assumed, which has been the issue upon one side 
of which the party called the Democratic party has ever 
without fail been found. I claim for that party, not that 
it contained better men than others, not that they were 
less falhble than their fellow citizens, not that they were 
more learned or more wise ; nay, I will not say they 
were more patriotic, but that the reason why it has had 
vitality and existence from the foundation of our govern- 
ment until to-day, yea, why it will exist so long as the 
very forms of freedom are left in this country, is because 
it is based on the principle of freedom, of opposition to 
centralized power, and an insistence on the distribution 
and limitation of powers for the public safety. 

" I care not what may be the issue that arises, the true 
test is, does the measure proposed tend to destroy the 
limitations upon power that keep us a free people, or does 
it tend to centralize power in any hands ? If it tends to 
centralization, it is anti-Democratic in the best meaning 
of the word ; if it tends to the diffusion of power through- 
out the land, then it is in accordance with their sentiment. 

" If I read the history and the meaning of the Demo- 
cratic party of the United States aright, it lias always been 



90 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

tlie organiziition wbieli lias advocated the distribution of 
130 wer, and never its consolidation, 

" Nowhere in the history of this government nndcr a 
Democratic administration will an attempt be found to 
gain or retain control by the consolidation of powers. 
Never under Democratic rule was an attempt made to 
usurp the just powers of any State, nor to invade the pre- 
rogative of one branch of the government by another. 

" Thus, there was no class legislation, no creation of 
vast federal corporations, no imi3erial grants of lands, no 
chartering of a whole system of banks ; but, on the con- 
trary, an examination of its record will disclose the truth 
that the doctrine of the distribution of jDower and the pre- 
vention of its consolidation has been from first to last the 
steady principle which the Democratic party has followed 
in or out of power. The preservation of the rights of the 
States, of the rights of the people of the States to fully 
exercise all the powers of self-government in relation to 
their internal and domestic affairs, has never in the most 
heated party times been attempted to be interfered with 
by the Democratic party. 

" In one word, the course of that party has always 
favored the doctrine of limitations upon power wherever 
that power was deposited. If the axiom be true (and who 
can doubt it?) that power is ever stealing from the many 
to the few, then in a country like our own, whose institu- 
tions were intended to be as free as was compatible with 
the preservation of gO(xl order and safety, the party that 
most jealously o]>]iosc'S the consolidation of powers is not 
only essential for the welfare of the country, but will be 
likely to prove its greatest safeguard. A party with such 
a principle underlying it will always exist while a shadow 
of freedom remains, and it matters not under what name. 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 91 

" I believe it was for this reason, tlins broadly stated, 
that prosperity, good feeling, and good order existed 
throughout our land. Simply because no power of the 
government was urged out of its proper sphere, and the 
harmony between federal and State governments was suf- 
fered to remain undisturbed, in accordance with the wise 
system arranged by our forefathers, I^othing but the 
truth, the actual vitality of this principle that governmen- 
tal powers, always seeking to aggrandize themselves in one 
form or another, are steadily to be kept in check by the 
will of the people over whom they are sought to be exer- 
cised, has ever enabled the Democratic party to maintain 
its existence amid all political fluctuations, changes of 
events and conditions in this country during the whole 
of the present century. 

" It has contained good men and bad men, and both 
classes at times have had power under its organization, 
but both were alike compelled to administer the govern- 
ment in subordination to the principle I have referred to. 
Hence, we of the Democratic faith have always inscribed 
'principles, not men,' on our banners. 

" Let us look a little further at the wisdom of the men 
who framed this government. They knew the inevitable 
tendency of power. You give a man a little power, and 
he uses it to obtain more. He gets the more, and then 
the easier is it for him to increase it. It is like the snow- 
ball that is begun by the school-boy, beginning a little 
ipaek in his hands, it presently rolls itself into a mass that 
can not be moved. That is the onward increase of power 
if left to its own laws, unchecked by human contrivance, 
virtue, or efforts. 

"The men who formed this government had other 
ends in view. Not only did they mean the people of their 



92 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

generation to be free, but they meant their posterity to be 
free ; that the government was to be preserved by the 
constant exercise of the principles npon which it was 
founded ; and, therefore, when they distributed power so 
that centralization should be checked and absolute power 
made, as far as, humanly, it could be made, impossible, 
they by that very act gave the people throughout the 
country the rigJit and o])2>ortunity of local self-govern- 
ment. What does that mean % It means the school of 
government ; it means the opportunity to learn how to 
be a citizen of the United States by learning what the 
functions and duties of a citizen are ; and how can you 
learn unless you practice and try ? Take a man among the 
many whom I see here to-night, whose hands and whose 
arms are hardened by honest and steady toil, and I ask 
you how long could those arms and hands, stalwart as they 
are, perform their task unless they had been taught to do 
it by exercise and practice ? If you tie up a man's arms 
and he does not use them, will not the muscles wither 
and grow weak ? Will he not lose all power of control 
over them? Undoubtedly. And is it different with 
your faculties of mind and heart ? Certainly not. Take 
away from a people the opportunity to exercise their 
power to tliink on public subjects, take away from them 
the right of local self-government, and their mental 
faculties will weaken just as their nniscles would if not i 
used. 

" Therefore, I beg you to understand the wisdom of 
the men who founded this government. They accom- 
plished a double object by distril)utiiig powers, insisting 
upon the State systems and the gi-eat rule and principles 
of local self-govermiient in o])position to centralization. 
They did that for the purpose of educating the people to 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 93 

become a self-governing nation. The wisdom of all this 
plan is this : unless the people are practiced in self-gov- 
ernment, they will not be fit to govern themselves, and, 
unless they do govern themselves locally according to their 
local interests, central power will seize upon them and 
their liberties and control them. So that, in order to be 
free, in this broad land, two things are required : that 
power shall be diffused throughout the country and not 
centralized at Washington, and that the people shall exer- 
cise their powers in order to fit them to carry on the gov- 
ernment. 

" The rights of the States were just as fixed and posi- 
tive, and are to-day as essential for the good government 
of this country, as the rights of the general government. 
They were part of the same system, and you can not take 
away the rights of the States without weakening our 
whole system, without destroying the power of the peo- 
ple by exercise to make themselves fit for self-govern- 
ment ; and you can not take away the rights of the gen- 
eral government without making it ineffectual to carry 
out the wishes of the people and make fit laws for them. 
The harmony of the system must be preserved, and there 
is no more reason to suppose that the great object for 
which this government was created will be defeated by 
the act of the States than by the act of the central gov- 
ernment. There is no reason to presume suicide from 
one cause more than the other, and, to use the language of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, in a case lately 
there decided, ' Such being tlie separate and independent 
condition of the States in our complex system, as recog- 
nized by the Constitution, and the existence of which is 
-so indispensable that without them the general govern- 
ment itself would disappear from the family of nations.' 



04: I^TFR f^F THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

" The exercise of local self-government, I have said 
to you, was essential for the education of the people. 
Where, in the history of the rule of this country under 
the Democratic party, was tliere an attempt on the part 
of the general government to invade a State ? AVhen, 
under the rule of the Democratic party, was there ever a 
disposition on the part of the general government to allow 
a State wantonly to invade its just authority ? AYlien 
there seemed to be an attempt, in 1833, on the part of 
South Carolina to destroy the harmony between her and 
the federal government, whose administration was it 
whose wise, firm rule brought that State to her proper 
bearings, and caused her to resume her proper place within 
the national family without the shedding of one drop of 
human blood ? Was it not Andrew Jackson, backed by 
the Democratic sentiment of the country, who, simply by 
the beneficent, regular operations of power under the 
federal Constitution, compelled the disorderly spirits of 
that State to render obedience to the United States Con- 
stitution and laws ? Therefore, you will observe that not 
only does the record of that party show you that peace 
and good order were maintained by leaving to the States 
their just powers, but whenever there was any attempt 
on their part to assume powers not belonging to them, or 
refuse their due alleijiance to the o:eneral o-overnraent, it 
was met and checked promptly. In my belief, my fellow 
citizens, it has been the adherence to that principle that 
has enabled the Democratic party to maintain its organi- 
zation so long ; and, so long as it is animated by that l, 
spirit of true freedom, that just regard for the spirit of 1^ 
our institutions and our laws, so long it will exist, until I 
even the forma of election and popular expression arc de- 
stroyed in this land," 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 05 

Again and again lie warns the party in power against 
the narrow-minded and short-sighted pohcy of distrust. 

''Do not," he says, in his remarks on the Mississippi 
election, " do not base all your legislation here upon the 
presumption that the States of this country do not pro- 
pose to do their duty by all their citizens. Do not sup- 
pose that the best refuge and the best sanctuary for the 
rights of an American freeman are only in the federal 
courts of this country. It is the same spirit through all. 
All are American courts. Do not for the sake of this 
temporary power which is yours to-day, and may leave 
you to-morrow, invoke an authority which some day may 
be used to interfere with that right of free local self-gov- 
ernment which is the very foundation and the very soul 
of our system of government. ... I beg of you, with 
all the feeling of one American toward another, to trust 
the American people. Trust the people of the American 
States. Do not let it go forth that the men of this coun- 
try, white or black, have no protection except in federal 
liberality. It is unjust to the States ; it is unjust to the 
people ; it is creating a certain collision of feeling and of 
sympathy between the States and the federal govern- 
ment, which ought to move along, each in its own orbit, 
undisturbing and undisturbed." 

We might fill many pages with quotations from Mr. 
Bayard's speeches in w^hich similar warnings and appeals 
are made. It has been the ever-recurring burden of his 
discourse, because it touched the very heart and root of 
the evil. With restored confidence and with a spirit of 
equal justice to all, once more filling the hearts of the 
people, north and sonth, the men whose whole political 
capital consists in stirring the embers of discord would 
soon find themselves plucked from their high places, and 



96 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

tlicir seats filled by statesmen who, however they might 
(litfer on points of policy, would have all the same aim, 
the good of the whole country. A manly appeal like this , 
from his speech of February 4, 1879, is worth all the 
" spread-eagle " rhetoric and phrase-mongering that have 
tickled foolish ears for a generation : 

" I believe that I can see in these resolutions and in 
others of a similar tenor a desire to renew doubt, suspi- 
cion, and distrust in one party and one section of our 
country against the other. Sir, we have had too much of 
that already. I believe that all the difficulties that have 
arisen in our land, that have darkened our homes with 
mourning, and spread their baleful shadow over the face 
of our country, have chiefly come from the fact that our 
countrymen were ignorant of each other ; it was the want 
of proper mutual understanding, it was the want of pro- 
per confidence that bred strife and confusion. If this 
spirit of renewed confusion is to be invoked, if the exi- 
gencies of party shall still call upon men to raise the stan- 
dard of strife and distrust among their countrymen, what- 
ever may be the result, I shall be found on the other side 
invoking the methods of peace and good will, and not those 
of war, invoking generous confidence and kind feeling, 
and not suspicion and hostility ; asking our countrymen 
to dwell not upon their mutual faults, but upon their 
mutual virtues, of which every day and every hour we 
can witness happy illustrations if we do but seek to real- 
ize and comprehend them. 

" This country to-day needs peace and rest, recupera- 
tion from the losses of war, and from the unwisdom of I 
angry legislation. The man serves his country best who 
seeks to avoid confusion and strife, who seeks to disarm 
suspicion and to re-create confidence : and if this is to be 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 97 

the issue that this liateful, dangerous geographical line of 
sentiment and action is sought to be established, I, for 
one, will not accept it ; I will be of no party, I will aid 
in no legislation that shall not recognize the right of each 
man in all parts of this country, and their duty to do that 
which no legislation can enforce — I mean the great duty 
of the creation of a spirit of nationality among the in- 
habitants of this broad land. How can that be created if 
men are to be permitted to stand on this floor and else- 
where, and denounce, with railing accusations and un- 
measured assaults, whole sections and States of our Union, 
and hold them up to scorn, to opprobrium, to detesta- 
tion ? Mr. President, there must be, and, please Heaven, 
there shall be yet, the unwritten law that will visit with 
popular execration and denunciation the man who seeks 
to establish the domination of a party at the cost of the 
peace and security and welfare of the entire American 
people." 

Nothing more strongly marks the extent to which 
men's minds have been warped by the principles and 
practice of the party in power, than the w\ay in which 
they have learned to look upon the government as some- 
thing above them to control them and dictate to them, 
instead of a body of public servants of their own crea- 
tion, with strictly limited powers and responsible for 
their use. On this point Mr. Bayard touched in his 
speech of May 4, 1872, on the bill " to secure equal rights 
in the schools of Washington and Georgetown." 

" This bill," he remarks, " would not be complete at 
the present time if it did not contain some portion of that 
coercive disposition which seems to mark so unhappily 
the legislation of this country for the last twelve years. 
The idea that this is a voluntary government sustained 



98 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

by tlie people because they love it, the laws executed 
because they represent the will of the people, seems to 
be nearly passed out of sight. There seems to be now 
no law that shall s]:)eak to the people by its own voice and 
by its own majesty, relying upon their ready assent to it 
because it is the law. No, sir, there must be a penalty ; 
there must be something to drive them to obey ; and 
such seems to me to be the unhappy feature in almost 
every public law that is now proposed. There is no 
longer trust in the desire of the people to execute the laws 
of their own free will ; but you seem to rely only upon 
the fact that they are to be scourged with fines and penal- 
ties, and driven to the work which can never be so well 
performed as when the heart shall dictate the act which 
the hand performs. Congress has been so in the habit of 
driving and coercing the people of this country, that it 
seems to me now that they have taken up that as the 
ruling principle of mere despotism in regard to every act 
of Congress, no longer trusting upon the hearty loyal 
wish of the people themselves to carry into effect volun- 
tarily the laws which their representatives have made, 
and which, if wise, M'ould commend themselves without 
recourse to penal threats. ... I have seen too often the 
Congress of the United States relying much more upon 
the force they could bring to execute a law, than upon 
the moral sentiment of the connnunity that they would 
obey it because it was the law. I long for the day when 
this coercive tone shall be silenced. I long for the day 
when the real wishes and the happiness of the people of 
this country — 'the consent of the governed' — shall be 
the underlying principle of every act of legislation." 

In the same spirit when he was denouncnig the inter- 
ference of Congress to frustrate the popular will in Mis- 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 99 

sissippi, and one of the advocates of that measure suggest- 
ed that there might be a reversal of parties in Delaware, 
lie flung back with scorn the covert implication. " It may- 
occur," he p;aid, " but God forbid that, when my people 
shall express their opinion against me and my party at 
the ballot-box, I should come here and ask Congress to 
revolutionize any State government for the sake of giv- 
ing me party advantage ! " 

This is the ground-tone that runs through all Mr. 
Bayard's speeches. Open them where you will, you will 
find the faithful watchman's cry announcing danger, even 
though it should fall upon heedless ears. The usurpations 
of power, and, what was still worse, the growing public 
indifference to those usurpations ; cynical disregard of 
the most solemn obligations and plighted faith ; the sys- 
tematic adoption of a policy of chronic mistrust diversi- 
fied by paroxysms of active hatred — these were the poi- 
sons that were tainting the blood of the whole country. 
His reiterated appeals for a return of good feeling were 
not a sentimental eirenicon, an entreaty to forgive and 
forget. They rested upon far deeper grounds ; upon the 
knowledge that what harmed one part of the country was 
harmful to all ; that a blow that pierced South Carolina 
wounded Massachusetts ; that the South could not ho. 
deadly sick and the North long remain sound. Yet these 
views were sneered at as old-fashioned, tlie exploded doc- 
trines of a by-gone age, by men who were incapable of 
looking beyond party advantage or seeing that he was in 
truth defending the real interests of their constituents far 
better than they were themselves. They were old-fash- 
ioned doctrines, no doubt ; they were as old-fashioned as 
the Constitution and the fathers that framed it ; nay, they 
were of an older fashion still, of the old fashion of truth, 



100 LIt'E OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

honesty, and kindness, before hatred struck tlie first blow 
and insolently asked, " Am I my brother's keeper?" 

Of a truth, in no other way can the country be saved 
from ever-reciirring perils, and the general prosperity 
planted upon a firm foundation, but by going back to 
fundamental principles. The war has changed much, 
and we all accept its changes ; but it has not changed 
these. We can, if we please, stand where our fathers 
stood in 1787, differing in opinion, but all striving for 
the good of the whole. The cry " Let us have peace," 
though uttered by one who brought not peace but a 
sword, finds now as then an echo in every honest heart. 
Let us have men in power who will once more look to 
the good of the whole country, instead of bounding their 
low ambitions by a party triumph ; let us have men who 
regard obligations, who will keep and enforce good faith, 
and once more bring back integrity where it has been so 
long a stranger, and set in themselves an example of the 
doctrines they preach ; men who see no difference in 
morality between a public and a private obligation ; 
whose hands are uncontaminated with bribes, whether of 
the grosser sort, or that subtler kind which appears on 
no check-book or ledger ; whose principles have not 
varied to suit the exigencies of the hour, but have been 
always the same from first to last. 

These are the principles that have guided Thomas F. 
Bayard through all his public career, not only when in a 
feeble minority, but when the tide of public opinion had 
turned. Through all the storms, the confusions, the 
uncertainties, the ever-shifting changes of the last eleven 
years, the eyes of both ft-iends and foes have turned to 
him, knowing that he would be found erect as a tower 

" That stands four-square to all tlio winds that blow." 



CHAPTER yil. 

FINANCE AND THE CUKEENCY. 

At the outbreak of the war, when many thought, and 
the Administration professed to think, that it would be 
of but short duration, it was believed that the necessary 
expenses might be met by an issue of convertible treasury 
notes and a loan for their redemption, without the neces- 
sity of resorting to extraordinary means. When, how- 
ever, events showed that the war was about to assume 
gigantic proportions, and might be of indefinite duration, 
it was plainly necessary to make provision for enormous 
expense. There were two ways of doing this : one by 
increasing taxation so as to pay for the war as it went on ; 
the other, to carry on the war on long credit, and lay the 
burden of the debt on future generations.* The former 
would have been the fairer way ; and men well versed in 
finance and acquainted with the country's resources be- 
lieved that it could be done. But the administration was 
afraid to risk the heavy taxation that such a course would 
have required ; they knew how much more terrible seems 
a near than a distant evil, and they believed that the peo- 
ple would rather mortgage their future prosperity than 
pinch and economize to j)ay heavy taxes. So one make- 

* " The extension of the debt over future generations " was actually 
urged as one of the soundest features of the policy adopted, by one of the 
senators from Massachusetts. 



102 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

shift was tried, and then another, nntil in February, 1862, 
the legal-tender bill was signed, and the country was 
flooded wdth " greenbacks," made by law a tender for all 
dues except duties on imports and interest on the public 
debt. 

That this law was unconstitutional was maintained by 
the conservatives, and afterward decided by a majority of 
as able judges as ever sat upon the Supreme bench, with 
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase at their head. That it 
was im2:)otent for good and very powerful for evil, any 
tyro in finance could see. It is perfectly plain that no act 
of Congress, no royal edict or imperial rescript can ever 
give value to anything whatever, though it may compel 
men to accept it as value. The sole value of the green- 
back consisted in its being a promise to pay, as its face 
expressed. If, instead of the words, " the United States 
will pay," it had read, " the United States will not pay," 
no power upon earth could have forced it into circula- 
tion. Had it been redeemable on demand in specie, of 
course it would always have been at par ; but, as it was, 
three elements of uncertainty entered into the estimate 
of its value : would it ever be redeemed ? how w^ould it 
be redeemed? when would it be redeemed? — and as the 
possibilities or probabilities in these respects varied from 
day to day, so did the purchasing power of the greenback, 
compared with the steady value of gold. By a fallacy 
like that which makes us say the sun rises and sets, 
whereas it is the earth that moves, men talked of the rise 
of gold while it was really the paper currency that wms 
faUing. Had gold i-cally risen ten per cent, compared 
with other values, all the precious metals of the world 
would have flowed into America ; as it was, long before 
gold had " risen," as it was called, to 200, every ounce of 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 103 

specie had either fled from the country or disappeared 
from circulation. A certain portion, diverted from its 
legitimate purposes, ran round and round in a charmed 
circle, from the treasury to the bondholder, from him to 
the importer, and from the latter to the treasury again, 
and it was made the basis of colossal gambling on the 
stock exchange ; but as a circulating medium it no longer 
existed. 

Of course, all who made contracts under the new order 
of things regulated their prices by the existing value of 
the currency, and the probabilities of its rise or fall ; and 
in this way the whole business of the country was dragged, 
perforce, into the vortex of speculation. The United 
States treasury— that is, the money of the whole people 
entrusted to certain public servants for special purposes- 
had to pay the constantly rising market rates for its enor- 
mous expenditure, and this increasing drain was met by 
new issues and new expedients, still further increasing 
the volume of the public indebtedness, and, as a natural 
consequence, lowering the value of the public promises. 

It was for a while the fashion to talk about the green- 
back having " saved the country " ; but no greater folly 
could be uttered. What brought the war to a successful 
close was the unshakable faith of the great majority of the 
people in their final success, and in the ultimate good faith 
of the government. In fact, the legal-tender act was a 
blow to the public credit, at home and abroad, as it 
amounted to an official declaration that the people had 
not faith in the ability or the purpose of the government 
to meet its obligations ; and as such it was answered by 
the immediate stoppage of the sales of bonds abroad. 
And " yet the financial interests of a great nation for an 
indefinite future were staked upon a desperate resource, 



104 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

to tide over a temporary exigency. "When the lessons of 
history were quoted, they were answered by the flag and 
eagle. "When caution was urged, in view of possible 
future exigencies, it was answered by prophecies of mili- 
tary success and denunciations of rebels. When the need 
of deliberation was urged, it was answered by clamor in 
regard to the necessities of the government. When it 
was said that irredeemable paper had always wrought 
ruin, it was answered that our resources were unlimited, 
and that these precedents did not make a rule for us. 
When it was proiDhesied that the paper would depreciate, 
and that we should not be able to retrace our steps, the 
prophets of evil were indignantly pointed to the ' pledged 
faith' of the United States, and asked if they thought 
that would be violated. The inference that the notes 
must be made legal-tender because the government needed 
money was never analysed, and its fallacy never shown. 
The question whether it is necessary to issue legal-tender 
notes is a question not of law, but of political economy ; 
and political economy emphatically declares that it never 
can be necessary. The proposition involves an absurdity. 
Whatever strength a nation has is weakened by issuing 
legal-tender notes."* 

A provision, however, was made for the redemption 
of these notes by the funding system ; that is, the hold- 
ers could buy TTnited States bonds, bearing interest, and 
redeemable within a certain time. It was the conversion 
of one form of debt into another form ; more burdensome 
on the coimtry, since it bore interest, but of a sounder 
character, since a time for redemption was fixed. Into 
the various issues of these and the way they were " floated " 

* " A ITistory of American Currency." By Prof. Sumner, of Yale College, 
pp. 201-2. 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 105 

hy selling at par in a depreciated currency, so that the 
country was pledged to pay from a dollar and a half to 
two dollars for every dollar received, besides interest in 
gold, and all the ingenious devices by which the market 
was "rigged," and the overburdened public dragged 
deeper and deeper into debt, it is needless to enter here. 
Take one example, a sale under the nine hundred million 
loan act : 

" Gold being at 140-150, that is, the paper dollar 
worth 65 or TO cents, 75,000,000 ten-forties [loan redeem- 
"able after ten years, interest to cease after forty years] 
were taken at about par at six per cent. The Secretary 
was now led to try the ten-forties at five per cent., but 
the currency was not sufficiently depreciated to float them 
at or near par, and they were not taken. lie then used 
his alternatives, issuing 175 millions one and two years 
treasury notes. Gold rose to 200-220, or above, making 
the paper worth 15 or 50 cents, at which point the five 
per cent, ten-forties floated." * 

That is, the Secretary of the Treasury, the guardian 
of the public money and the public credit, purposely 
depreciated the value of the currency by lowering the 
general trust in the public faith, in order that he might 
entail upon the people of the United States a debt of two 
dollars and interest thereon for every dollar received. 
Nor is this said by way of reflecting upon the character 
of Secretary Chase ; but to show to what desperate ex- 
pedients even honorable men were driven by the false 
and ruinous policy that had been so recklessly adopted. 

The disease, bad enough in itself, was rendered much 
worse by extravagant inflation, or an increase of the vol- 
ume of the currency beyond the needs of legitimate trade. 

* Sumner, p. 20*7. 



106 Ll™ OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

Of course when two dollars had only the purchashig 
power of one, it took twice the amount of currency to 
carry on the business of the country. The larger figures 
looked like larger values, the scarcity of gold increased 
the foreign exports, the lavish expenditures of the war 
stimulated nearly all branches of trade, the rapid fluctu- 
ations in prices fostered wild speculation, and the people, 
deceived by a fallacious show of prosperity, demanded 
more money. 

Thus the disease produced the morbid craving, and 
the indulgence of the craving aggravated the disease. To 
complicate the situation further, the national bank sys- 
tem, then an untried experiment, was established, and 
the old State banks taxed, for the most part, out of ex- 
istence. 

At the end of the war, in October, 1865, the total 
debt of the country was $2,808,000,000 ; the total cur- 
rency, $704,000,000. Under the management of Secre- 
tary McCulloch the process of contraction — that is, of 
liquidating that part of the public debt that was repre- 
sented by the greenbacks — was begun, but it was in part 
neutralized by the increased issues of national bank notes. 
This retirement of the notes was kept u]) until January, 
1808, by w^hich time $-l:l,000,000 had been retired, and 
the amount in circulation reduced to $356,000,000, the 
national bank circulation being then about $295,000,000. 
At this point Congress stepped in and stoj^ped their fur- 
ther retirement. 

The resolution of Congress had called for the " retire- 
ment and cancellation " of these notes ; but, though re- 
tired, they were not canceled, for in the fall of 1872 
Secretary l>outwell re-issued $5,000,000 of them, which 
Congress afterward called in again. In the next year 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 107 

Secretarj Richardson again re-issued $26,000,000 of tliese 
" retired and canceled " notes, and Congress legalized 
the proceeding. The volume of legal-tender currency 
was now within $8,000,000 of what it had been ten years 
before. The resumption act of January, 1875, redeem- 
ing 80 per cent, of United States notes for every $100 
issued to the banks, brought down the legal-tenders to 
$347,000,000 ; but the act of May, 1878, stopped further 
contraction by requiring the re-isszie of the redeemed 
notes. Such is a brief outline of the action of the gov- 
ernment in regard to the legal-tenders. 

On March 15, 1869, a House bill, called " a bill to 
strengthen public credit," was introduced into the Senate. 
It began with the preamble : " That, in order to remove 
doubt as to the pui"pose of the government to discharge 
all just obligations to the public creditors, and to settle 
conflicting questions and interpretations of the laws by 
virtue of which such obligations have been contracted, 
It is herel)y provided and declared that the faith of the 
United States is solemnly pledged to the payment in coin, 
or its equivalent, of all the obligations of the United 
States," etc. 

On this bill Mr. Bayard made his first speech of any 
kind in the Senate, and we cite his remarks at some 
length, as they give the keynote to his constant financial 
policy : " The title of this bill [which had been amended] 
now reads, ' A bill to strengthen the public credit.' Its 
title so far is a challenge to American respect. But do 
the object and effect of the bill upon examination bear 
out the high-sounding phrases of its title ? I apprehend 
not. Is this bill to have the effect 'to strengthen the 
public credit' in reality? AVhat is our public credit? 
The confidence of the public that the government of the 



108 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

United States -will tlioronglily fulfill all its ol)ligatioiis in 
their letter and their spirit. That is our credit. 

"Now, sir, to obtain and justify this confidence, I 
know of no royal road, I never have been able to under- 
stand the difference between the principle that should be 
applied to the honest extinguishment of a private debt 
and a public debt. I take it they both rest upon the same 
sound princi2)le, and they must both be treated, if treated 
honorably, in the same manner and to the same effect. 
The payment, in my opinion, of any debt, public or jiri- 
vate, is a mere combined question of ability and integrity. 
Every law, therefore, that ^^■e may j^ass which shall have 
a tendency to increase our ability to pay our public 
obligations will strengthen, in fact, our public credit. 
Therefore, every act of economy, every act of retrench- 
ment, is an act of this character, and I will most cheer- 
fully vote for it upon all occasions when I have the op- 
portunity. More than that, sir, every act which tends to 
create popular confidence in the permanence of our gov- 
ernment is an act of this character. Every act which 
tends to restore order and regularity to our proceedings, 
and to distribute governmental powers in accordance with 
the intent of the character of our government, is of this 
character. . . . 

" But, sir, this act professes to be a declaratory act. 
The language of it is that it is intended to ' settle conflict- 
ing questions, and interpretations of the law,' in virtue of 
which certain obligations of the United States were in- 
curred. Now, I invite the attention of honorable sen- 
ators to this fact : something is due to oui* own character, 
and the character of om* body. Each bill should do in 
substance that which upon its face it professes. If any- 
thing would be derogatory to, and tend to weaken the 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 109 

character and credit of, the United States, it would be 
that under the guise of one measure you seek indirectly 
to acconipHsh something that you dare not place fully 
on its face. If this act, however, called merely a declara- 
tory act, be intended in any degree to add any new stipu- 
lations of an obligatory character upon the government 
of the United States ; if it be intended, either expressly 
or by any implication of the present law, to give any new 
right of action in claims of the public creditors under the 
law under which these obligations were issued, then I pro- 
test against its passage as being fraudulent upon its face, 
and untrue ; and I claim that if such an intent is to 
be urged hereafter, directly or indirectly, let our action 
appear, that men may clearly know what it is they vote 
for." 

The speaker then proceeded to show the nature and 
origin of declaratory acts, which had their rise under the 
English system of government, and were intended to pre- 
serve the traditions of an unwritten law, but were not 
germane to the government and laws of the United States. , 
After briefly touching upon some of the possible results 
of the passage of this bill, he continued : " I do not, how- 
ever, propose at this time to make any extended remarks 
upon that which lies in the future. ' Sufficient for the 
day is the evil thereof ' — sufficient for me it is in con- 
sidering this bill to find it in a shape that I can not give 
my approval to, because it transgresses that which was 
always with me, and I trust ever will be, the rule of my 
action in treating upon governmental matters. It is an 
attempt by Congress to invade the prerogatives of another 
branch of the federal government, and I believe that I 
can strengthen my government no better than by keep- 
ing the proper departments each within its proper sphere. 



110 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

Our danger at this time is tliat men lose siglit, it seems 
to me, of the dividing lines of power ; that there are de- 
partments in public justice, and that if those departments 
are over-ridden, if those barriers are broken down, con- 
fusion will come, the first name of which confusion will 
be, perhaps, an elective despotism, and the word ' an- 
archy ' will come in soon after. . . . 

" While I am perfectly willing to support the amend- 
ment of the honorable Senator from Kentucky " [that 
the just and equitable measure of tlie obligation of the 
United States upon their outstanding bonds ... is the 
value at the time in gold and silver of the paper currency 
paid to the government on those bonds], I can not vote 
for the bill in its j^resent shape, for I think it can not 
have any effect to strengthen the public credit ; but I 
think it may have this effect, in regard to which I either 
feel indifferent or hostile — it may temporai'ily inflate the 
bonds of the United States government, but for what 
good end ? Is the legislation of this country to become 
a matter for the use of speculatoi-s ? Already the crea- 
tion of your so-called lawful money of paper has given 
rise to an elasticity of business which has destroyed 
credit, which is making everything in the country purely 
speculative ; and I am not disposed to dignify such a 
mere stock-jobbing result as the temporary puffing of 
these bonds into an increased price as worthy of an act 
of Congress, or of anything that we should give our as- 
sent to. 

" Then, if it is supposed that by raising these bonds in 
their value temporarily you may induce a larger portion 
to be held by foreign holders, to that I say, as at present 
advised, I can not give my assent or a])proval. As this 
debt is to be paid, and as it is to be paid with such eiior- 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. HI 

mons interest upon it in this other lawful money bo 
superior in value to the paper which bore that name ; if 
the people of the country are to pay the interest, I wish 
that it should be paid to our own fellow citizens, and not to 
persons who reside abroad. The strange paradox seems 
to have pervaded men's minds at the present time that 
the greater a man's debt, the richer he is ; and that the 
more the bonds of the government could be held abroad, 
so much greater the proof that we were a prosperous, a 
rich, and a great nation. I can not so consider it. Look 
at the great debt of England, not, proportionate to the 
amount of accumulated capital, or to the amount of in- 
terest paid, one half as great as our own ; those who are 
fond of citing that as an illustration of our consolidated 
ability to meet it, should remember that there ran always 
with it the proposition that it was mainly held within the 
British empire ; in other words, that, if the people of 
England were taxed to pay this heavy debt, the people of 
England received the benefit. So, if our country is to be 
taxed to pay this debt, and to be taxed to pay the interest 
upon it, let us, at least, if it can be so arranged, see to it 
that our own people shall get the benefit of the great sacri- 
fices which will be necessary to be undergone by the Ameri- 
can people in order to meet this debt in any proper and 
reputable shape. Therefore, sir, while I am not, and never 
propose to be, interested in puffing the price of United 
States bonds for the purpose of creating a foreign demand, 
and creating a still greater outflow of gold into foreign 
countries from the hard-wrung toil and labor of my coun- 
trymen, for that reason, if for no other, should I withhold 
my assent to this bill." 

The bill passed the same day, Senators Bayard, Car- 
penter, Casserly, Cole, Davis, Morton, Osborn, Rice, Reve, 



112 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

Spcneer, Stockton, Tliunnan, and Vickers voting in the 
negative. 

Very wisely did Mr. Bayard suspect this act with its 
specious title. And how was its promise fulfilled ? The 
Secretary of the Treasury, instead of redeeming the green- 
backs, and so restoring public credit and specie payments 
at once, employed the gold at his command by selling it 
and buying up with the proceeds bonds not due at a high 
premium, and leaving the currency as it was, thus giving 
a splendid profit to the bondholders, while the masses 
were suffering all the evils of an inflated currency. And 
this masterly policy was pursued until 1874. No legisla- 
tion could strengthen public credit while it rested upon 
such foundations. To quote Mr. Bayard's words, " it was 
not only a house built upon sand, but it was a house of 
straw built upon sand ; there was neither substance above 
nor below, and no human ingenuity could give it perma- 
nent stability or safety." 

No doubt the great masses of the Republican party 
were as sincerely anxious for the prosperity of the coun- 
try as were the Democrats. But they had suffered them- 
selves to be deluded by unwise or selfish leaders, and had 
committed the fatal error of disregarding and loosely in- 
terpreting the Constitution. Had they held fast to that 
and rigidly adhered to its limitations, they would never 
liave fallen into these errors ; but, in that case, they 
would not have been the Republican jiarty. The Con- 
stitution gave no power to Congress to make paper 
a legal tender ; but that was over-ridden on tlie ])lea 
of military necessity. Tlie (Constitution straitly limited 
and defined the powers of every branch of the federal 
government ; but, under a Repul)li('an administration, 
the legislative usurped the powers of. the judiciary, or 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 113 

the executive of either, upon any plea that was con- 
venient for the moment. The Constitution carefully spe- 
cified the powers of the federal government, declaring 
all others reserved to the States respectively, or the 
people; but now the rights of the States and of the 
people of the States were invaded by legislative enact- 
ment, by executive action, by military force, without 
any plea whatever. 

The party in power had so overwhelming a majority 
in both Houses that they were at no pains to conceal the 
cardinal principles of their legislation, and occasionally 
avowed them with an effrontery almost cynical. In 
March, 1869, Senator Sprague introduced a "bill for 
loaning the public money," and providing for a " United 
States council of finance," with a commissioner, deputy 
commissioner, auditor, and twenty-four councillors, all sal- 
aried, to do a grand bill-discounting business with the 
public money, all the while that the people were groan- 
ing under the interest on the public debt. That the Unit- 
ed States should turn money-lender and note-shaver was 
bad enough ; but that it should do this on a capital of its 
own unpaid promissory notes was something stupendous. 
But the cream of the whole business lay in the brief re- 
marks with which the Senator introduced it. He said, 
" I desire to call the attention of the Senate to this bill. 
In my judgment it will perpetuate the power and the ex- 
istence of the Republican party for twenty years. Then 
it will put out of existence great bankers, great traders, 
great shipmasters, great manufacturers, great telegraph, 
railroad, and other corporations." That is, it would ruin 
the great productive industries of the country. That Avas 
one thing. And it would keep the Republican party in 
power for twenty years. That was another thing. And 



114 Lli^'E OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

these two considerations, he thought, ought to recommend 
it to the majority in the Senate. 

The brain grows dizzy in attempting to follow all the 
schemes and devices proposed in Congress in regard to 
currency and finance. To change one form of debt into 
another form of debt, with a provision for its possible 
conversion into a third form ; to make one kind of bond 
acceptable because it was long, and another because it 
was short; to devise some super-dexterous juggling by 
means of which capitalists could be inveigled into lend- 
ing their money at less than the market value ; to pro- 
pose, with a grand flourish about honest payment, the 
redemption of one kind of currency, with the condition 
that it should be replaced by an equal or greater amount 
of another kind of currency just as irredeemable — these 
were some of the expedients proposed, instead of the 
simple, straightforward plan of paying off the debt as fast 
as it could be paid, and in that way bringing the notes to 
par, which was all that was needed. No words can de- 
scribe the chaotic character of the debates on this subject. 
Everybody had his grand nostrum for doing by not 
doing, and for attaining something by striving for just 
the opposite ; and speaker after speaker arose, with his 
sheets of carefully arranged figures, and, after a flour- 
ish about the public credit, proceeded, according to 
the measure of his abilities, to stretch out the line of 
confusion in theory, and lay the stones of emptiness in 
practice. 

Conspicuous among these darkeners of counsel M-as 
Mr. Sherman, in whose dexterous hands facts and figures 
M-ere like cards in those of Robert Iloudin, multiplying 
or diminishing at his will, coming no one knew whence, 
and vanishinir no one knew whither. In March, 1870, 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 115 

he introduced liis grand funding bill, " to authorize the 
funding and consolidation of the national debt, to extend 
banking facilities, and to establish specie payments." Of 
course, it provided for an issue — they all provided for an 
issue of something or other, either of more paper, or an- 
other sort of paper into which the old sorts were convert- 
ible (and the bankers and brokers made a pretty penny 
by all this converting and reconverting ; but this by the 
way). It provided for an issue, of course, and this it 
was : the government (to establish specie payments) was 
to issue not more than $400,000,000 in 5 per cent, bonds, 
fifteen-forties, and not more than $400,000,000 in 4 
per cent, bonds, twenty-forties, these last to be sold to 
national banks, formed or to be formed, as a basis for 
further extension of their circulation. Here was a way 
indeed " to establish specie payments " ! 

Mr. Bayard opposed the scheme in his speech of March 
7th. He showed the evils under which the countiy was 
laboring, and the real cause — " It was chiefly because, de- 
parting from all our traditions, from the principles of 
finance stamped indelibly upon our written Constitution, 
in spite of the warnings of every generation of our states- 
men from the formation of our government until the 
present time, the Republican majority of Congress in 1862 
resorted to issues of paper money to sustain public credit. 
They created a money of credit which had no intrinsic 
value. It was a blunder in finance, which, as the witty 
Frenchman said,. was 'worse than a crime.' It did more 
to place the laboring masses of this country in the hands 
of capitalists than all your other measures combined. It 
unsettled values by destroying the only standard of value. 
You might as well have repealed all laws for the regula- 
tion of weights and measures. It placed a strip of india- 
6 



110 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

rubber in lieu of the yard-stick, and jugglers' bottles in 
place of fixed measures or quantities. 

" This was not done without debate, or heedlessly. 
The ev'ils of this system had all been foretold. But party 
power was dearer to the majority of that Congress than 
public faith. The founders of our government had suf- 
fered bitterly from the use of paper money. The system 
had proved its falsehood and its perfect worthlessness in 
our war of independence. If any man doubts this, let 
him read the debates of the convention which formed the 
Federal Constitution, and his doubts must be all re- 
moved ; and the lessons so taught us by the sages of 1T8T 
had been repeated by our wisest and best men in every 
generation since. 

" It has been owing to the disregard of the lessons 
and warnings, and by direct, flagrant violation by the 
Ilepublican party of the provisions of the Federal Con- 
stitution, that our people groan to-day under at least 
$900,000,000 of the present debt ; and this is a moderate 
estimate of the cost to us of the paper-money issue. The 
most reasonable and reliable calculation I have yet seen 
places sixty-six and two-thirds cents on the dollar as the 
average sum received for our present federal securities." 

He disdains to enter upon the idle and endless task of 
untangling the maze of figure and calculations which had 
been prepared and propounded to prove that not doing a 
thing was the same thing as doing it, and that increasing 
a debt was the way to pay it, and strikes at once at the 
root of the matter. 

" My proposition respecting the funding of this na- 
tional debt, desirable as I think it for the purpose of di- 
minishing the large rate of interest we now pay, is this : 
that we must postpone any such measure until we shall 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 117 

have readied a real basis of value for our cuiTeney, when 
\ve shall have a constitutional currency of coined money 
of value to rest our debt upon before we talk of funding 
it. So long as our basis of currency is one of credit only, 
A\ithout intrinsic value, just so long uncertainties and 
fluctuations will distress the land and disturb all legit- 
imate business. Let us resume specie payments before 
we offer new loans," 

And he concludes that the only honest and feasible 
plan is " to go back until our feet rest once more upon the 
solid rock of the Federal Constitution, The currency of 
tlie country is a matter of enormous importance, and that 
currency can not, in my belief, be lawfully or safely any- 
thing else than a currency of value — the gold and silver 
coin directed by the Constitution," 

It would be wearisome and unprofitable to follow up 
all the devious courses and analyse the patent nostrums 
of the Republican financiers of those days. Against all 
these tricks and devices Mr, Bayard steadily set his face 
and recorded his vote. When, in December, 1873, Mr, 
Sherman w^as pressing a bill providing for national banks 
without circulation, Mr. Bayard opposed it, asking where 
Congress got the power to multiply indefinitely banks of 
deposit, " It was far better," he said, " to go back to the 
great- principles of finance, as in all other questions of 
government, of letting the people of the locality, through 
the exercise of local self-government, remedy the evils 
under which they suffer by the light of their own expe- 
rience." "I am strongly in favor of disconnecting the 
banking system of the country from the treasury of the 
United States, I do not believe that one helps the other," 

In the minority resolution offered by him on De- 
cember 15, 18T3, he gives his view of the one duty 



118 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

of Congress, in the matter of tlie pnblic finance, in 
few words : 

" Whereas, a just regard for the interests of every 
class of the community demands that the national basis 
of finance shall consist of a uniform standard and intrinsic 
value ; therefore — 

Resolved, That the Committee on Finance be, and 
they are hereby, instructed to report to the Senate meas- 
ures which will secure, at the earliest practicable day, a 
return to specie payments." 

"A uniform standard," not two weiglits and two 
measures, nor the " strip of india-rubber " ; " intrinsic 
value," not "fiat-money" and promises not to pay, not 
even promises to pay, as a basis ; and a return to specie 
payments as soon as practicable. This was his and the 
minority's answer to Mr. Sherman's proposition to estab- 
lish a currency " adjusted to meet the changing wants of 
trade and commerce." His views on the subject and his 
suggestions for a practicable way of gaining the end de- 
sired will be given elsewhere ; but this, in brief, was Mr. 
Bayard's position first, last, and all the time. When some 
of the Democratic leaders, forgetting the true principles 
of their party, became grecnbachers and inflationists, tliey 
left him standing where he had always stood, on the firm 
foundation of honest payment of debts in honest money, 
and as soon as it could be done. 

When we remember that the bonds of the United 
States had been bought at far less than their gold value, 
and that Mr. Bayard himself never owned a single bond 
or a single share of bank-stock, one might have supposed 
that his sympatliies with the bondholders and the banks 
would not be strong. But his sympathies with justice 
and honesty are more than a principle — they are part of 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 119 

his very being ; and, on the question of making the de- 
based silver dollar a lawful tender for all amounts, he 
pleads the cause of the banks and the bondholders as if 
he were one of them, for there it is the cause of light, of 
good faith, and of the whole people. He, never himself 
a capitalist, becomes the earnest defender of capital when 
it is proposed to wrong capital, or to defame it as if it 
were the enemy, instead of the ally, of industry. In his 
speech of February 4, 1878, he says: "Let it not be for- 
gotten that the banking capital of the United States to-day 
almost wholly, with the rare exception of State banks of 
discount and deposit here and there, is based upon the 
bonds and credit of the United States government. The 
stock of the banks of course depends upon the security 
of the bonds. It does not stop there. The business of 
the country, the accommodation to the borrowers, all the 
circulation, has this ultimate dependence upon the credit 
of the bonds which lie at the foundation of security for 
every bank in the country. You can not strike down that 
interest without striking men who never saw a bond, who 
never owned a liond, of the United States government. 

" If a bank is crippled, can it continue accommoda- 
tions ? And, if it can not, who shall suffer ? If stringency 
and distrust shall mark at once our business, who shall 
suffer ? The men engaged in business, and not simply 
the banks, which are the instruments and the instrumen- 
talities for distribution and discount and of currency. 
Oh, no, sir. A blow so blindly leveled will reach objects 
it never was intended to strike ; it will prostrate interests 
of which we now can have but slight comprehension. 
For better or for worse, the fate of the banking capital of 
the country is rooted in the prosperity of the communities 
in which the banks are organized." 



120 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

And a little further on : " What is capital ? It is hut 
the accumulation of lahor. The very highest instincts of 
humanity are exercised in procuring and amassing it. It 
is the glory of our institutions, and nowhere have I ever 
heard that more resoundingly pronounced than on the 
floor of the Senate that the institutions of this country 
offer no impediment to the poor man, or the poor man's 
son, rising to place and power and property ; tliat all the 
avenues are thrown open to him ; and does not this sen- 
ate chamber itself proclaim the fact ? How many men 
wdio hold their seats here to-day, how many of those men 
who have held seats here in times gone by, have known 
youths of poverty struggling against adverse fortune, and 
who have triumphed and gained place and gained fortune 
and power by the liberal, generous, equitable institutions 
of American government ! Sir, the people of this coun- 
try are not downtrodden. The history of this country 
proves by the men who have been your presidents, your 
rulers, yes, your millionaires to-day are men who started 
at the lowest round of fortune's ladder, and have had 
their upward path impeded by no obstacle whatever. 

" Why, sir, there is not an apprentice in the land who 
does not hope to become a journeyman ; there is not a 
journeyman in the land who has not his visions of becom- 
ing an employer of men ; there is not an employer of 
men who is not straggling daily to better his condition, 
and to place himself in a position of independence pecu- 
niarily. What becomes of the virtue of thrift which -we 
so commend — the virtues of self-denial, of self-control, 
and of industry ? They arc all meant for one purpose, to 
lift men beyond the risk of temptation and place them 
where every good man would wish to be, in a condition 
of being able to help others less able or fortunate than 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 121 

himself. The man who overvalues money is simply un- 
wise, but the man who undervalues it can not be said to 
be wiser." 

"When the possibility of resumption had at length al- 
most been reached, we find him, in May, 1878, resisting, 
with all his energies, the act to forbid the further retire- 
ment of the legal-tender notes, and thus turn the ship's 
course away from the land that was just in sight. In his 
speech on that occasion he reviewed the whole subject, 
and offered an amendment that the notes should be de- 
prived of their legal-tender feature, but should be receiv- 
able for all dues to the government except duties on 
imports. Those duties being the source from which the 
treasury received gold to pay the interest on the public 
debt, cutting off that source would compel the treasury 
to purchase gold in the market, whatever the premium, 
and we had had sad experience of the effects of that kind 
of finance. With the notes at par in gold, there was no 
conceivable reason why they should not be retired, or, if 
desired as a convenient circulating medium, be continued 
without the compulsory clause, and standing on their own 
merits alone. 

His latest utterance on the subject is found in his 
speech of January 27, 1880. The Senate, having under 
consideration the joint resolution in relation to United 
States treasury notes, the minority of the Committee on 
Finance submitted the following recommendation and 
resolution : 

" The undersigned, believing that the industrial, commercial, and 
financial prosperity of a country, in order to be enduring and se- 
cure, must be based upon a money of actual and intrinsic value, and 
that our government has no power and is incompetent to endow its 
paper obligations with such value, and the United States Treasury 



122 LIFE OF THOJIAS F. BAYARD. 

notes in existence and in circulation being now redeemable in gold 
and silver coin at the option of the holder, do therefore recommend 
the withdrawal of the present compulsory legal-tender power from 
such treasury notes by the passage of the subjoined joint resolution. 

" T. F. BAYARD. 

"FEANCIS KEENAN. 

" Admitting the principle of the resolution as to the power of the 

government to make paper legal-tender, I reserve Jny action upon 

the resolution as to the time of the withdrawal of the power given 

heretofore. ' 

" WILLIAM A. WALLACE. 

" Reserving the right of amendment. 

"JUSTIN MOERLLL. 

[Joint resolution in relation to United States notes.] 

'■'■ Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the, 
United States of America in Congress assembled. That from and 
after the passage of this resolution all United States notes shall be 
receivable for all dues to the United States excepting duties on im- 
j)orts, and sliall not be otherwise a legal tender; and any of said 
notes hereafter reissued shall bear this superscription." 

Mr. Bayakd: "Mr. President, my object in urginjii: 
the adoption of tlie present resolution is to bring about 
an actual resumption of specie payments. Whatever else 
may be effected by this resolution is secondary, and merely 
incidental to this one cardinal object. 

" I ardently desire the prosperity of my country ; I 
wish it to endure, and I know that to be permanent it 
must rest upon a sound basis, and I know that a sound 
currency is essential, and that real money is the only 
basis of a sound currency. 

"I have said that I desire to effect a real resumption 
of specie payments, for I do not believe what is at present 
called resumption is real or reliable, because, although 
since January 1, 1879, United States notes are redeem- 
able in coin at the office of the assistant treasurer of the 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 123 

United States in New York city ; yet, by the act of May 
31, 1878, 

" ' when any of said notes may be rcdeeraed or be received into the 
Treasury of the United States, they sliall not be retired, cancelled 
or destroyed, but tliey shall be reissued and paid out again and kept 
in circulation ; ' 

"so that while there is a resumption of payment in specie, 
it is neutralized in all its resumptive effects by the imme- 
diate reissue of the notes just redeBmed. To 'resume' 
by such a delusive process is as idle as to bail water witli 
a sieve. 

" I am for actual resumption and a restoration of real 
money in place of any substitute therefor, unless such 
substitute is voluntarily agreed upon by the parties to 
any contract. Plainly, then, this resolution is intended 
to secure the resumption of a standard of value — based 
upon value, and not upon mere credit. 

" It is not intended to destroy the convenience and 
assistance of the present paper currency ; but, as that 
paper rests upon the credit that it is convertible into 
specie and will he paid, so do I feel assured that, by letting 
men feel a confidence that a stable standard is ultimately 
to measure all their contracts, they will naturally feel 
safer to enter into contracts. This will give them assurance 
that the lapse of time will not bring with it alterations 
in the basis upon which their agreements were formed. 
This will encourage capital to embark upon enterprises 
which will give employment to the laboring classes, and 
M'ill insure to labor an honest equivalent for every hour 
of toil. Such, I believe, will be a part and a part only of 
the benefits to flow from the adoption of this resolution. 

" Mr. President, I would pause here, and ask the con- 
sideration of the Senate to a confusion of terms, which L 



124: LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYAED. 

am sure has led to a great confusion in tlioiight, in deal- 
ing with this subject. It is unfortunate that notes should 
be called ' money,' as it tends to produce confusion and 
injustice ; at best, notes are a promise, and, until that 
promise is paid in money ^ it is unperformed. 

"When power was given to Congress 'to borrow 
money on the credit of the United States,' the words 
had a definite meaning : not to borrow evidences of debt, 
but to give their evidences of debt for money. The issue 
of the notes was a proof that the goVernment had no 
money ; that they thought it unadvisable to tax the peo- 
ple to obtain it ; and, therefore, the United States notes 
were merely instruments of the government to obtain 
supplies to carry on the war Avithout paying for them, 

" The very issue of these notes was a confession that 
the government had no money. To make them circulate 
in the place of money, and enable the holders to get rid of 
them, they made them at first convertible into the interest- 
bearing obligations of the government, and created them 
a legal tender for all debts, public and private. And let 
it here be noted that making notes legal tender does not 
oblige any man to sell his property for such notes ; it 
only compels him to receive them for a debt then due. 
In other words, legal tender is a dcht-pcajing power, but 
can never be made a deht-conii'actinr/ power; and no 
amount of tyrannical force in the history of the world 
has ever been able to accomplish this last. To define 
the diiference between money and its substitute, I will 
accept the definition of Lord Liverpool, in his famous 
report upon the coins of the realm of Great Britain : 

" ' The money or coin of a conntry is the standard 
measure by which the value of all things, bought and 
sold, is regulated and ascertained ; and it is itself, at the 



FINANCE AND TIIE CURRENCY. 125 

same time, the value or equivalent for which goods are 
exchanged, and in which contracts are generally made 
payable.' 

"Paper currency, in all its forms, bills of exchange, 
promissory notes, bank bills, all are useful auxiliaries of 
money, but are evidences of debt, and not of wealth, and 
possess no inherent value. 



"In no civilized country can all the exchanges of 
property be carried on by the agency of coin alone. 

" Paper notes are an essential auxiliary to coin, but 
never let it be forgotten, they are not coi?i — are not 
moneij — but are suhstitides for it. They are not actual 
payments, but promises to pay — evidences of debt which 
the law will enforce — and do not give value for value ; 
and their acceptance must be based on their credit, on 
their convenience, and be aUoays voluntary in order to 
he safe. 

" When a paper note, an evidence of debt, is made a 
compulsory tender in payment of a debt — the great law 
of honesty — the great law of money — that value is to he 
given for value., is broken and disregarded. 

" Mr. President, we have heard in this chamber allu- 
sions somewhat vague, but none the less alarming, to an 
unseen, undefined, but terrible, ' money power.' 

" What is meant by these ominous warnings against 
this invisible, intangible, immeasurable power ? 

" What is meant is, I suppose, the power of capital. 

" How shall the law deal with it ? 

" Capital is the result of labor and frugality ; it is by 
the virtues of thrift, economy, and self-denial, working 
under the instruction of intelligence and enlightened self- 



126 I'^FE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

interest, that capital is first created, and then accumu- 
hited. 

" Wealth and j^roperty of all descriptions are but forms 
of capital. Encouragement is given by the institutions 
of property, by the creation of government, by the enact- 
ment of laws, to induce men to exercise their faculties to 
gain wealth. Is all this founded upon fallacy and wrong ''. 
Is there to be discrimination, suspicion, and assault visited 
upon those individuals of society who have been more 
successful than others in the accumulation of property ? 
Is it not ' money power ' that enables a poor laborer to 
become the owner of the pick-ax or shovel with which 
he prosecutes his daily task ? Is it not ' money power ' 
that enables him to procure a wheelbarrow ? Is it not 
' money power ' tliat enables his savings of a year's 
labor, temperance, and frugality to give him the means 
to purchase a horse and cart ? Is it not ' money power ' 
that enables him to educate his children and fit them for 
an improved condition in life? Is it not the same 
' money power ' that crowns his life of honesty, sobriety, 
and industry with an old age of comfort and respecta- 
bility ? 

" Such, sir, are the humble, but honorable and useful, 
careers that America offers to the poor..of all lands; and, 
of all institutions to secure such results, a money having 
real value is the chief, because it is the true and only 
road by which the laborer honestly becomes the capital- 
i>-t. . . . 

" The issue of these United States notes vas, until these 
later days of ' greenback ' finance, always stated to be ' a 
war measure,' growing out of the exigencies of the times, 
and to be ended just so soon as peace was restored. 

"In his annual report of 1862, Secretary Chase said : 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 127 

'"The recommendations now submitted of the limited issue of 
United States notes as a wise expedient for the present time . . . are 
prompted by no favor to excessive issues of any description of credit 
moneys; . . . for^ just so soon as victory shall restore peace, the am- 
ple revenue already secured by wise legislation will enable the gov- 
ernment through advantageotis purchases of specie to replace at once 
large amounts, and at no distant day the whole of this circulation 
ly coin, without detriment to any interest, but, on the contrary, 
with great and manifest benefit to all interests. The Secretary 
recominends therefore no mere paper-money scheme, but, on the 
contrary, a series of measures looking to a safe and gradual return 
to gold and silver as the only permanent basis, standard, and mea- 
sure of values recognized by the Gonstitxition.'' 

" The language of Secretary McCullocli, in 1865, 1 have 
read ah-eady to tlie same effect, and the ' cordial concur- 
rence' of Congress. To this I could add abundant 
proofs from the debates, and from the valuable ' Finan- 
cial History of the War,' by Mr. Spaulding, to show that 
the issue of treasury notes was at no time intended as a 
permanent measure with or without legal-tender power. 

" The peace looked forward to by Secretary Chase came 
three years after he wrote the words I have read, and 
fifteen years have passed since the war ended, and yet we 
find this measure of confessed temporary expediency still 
in force, and by many urged to be continued in per_pe- 
tuuvfi. And senators say ' these notes are now at par — 
are redeemable by the government at the M'ill of the 
holder in gold and silver coin.' 'Therefore let well 
alone,' and ' it is inexpedient ' to do anything noic to 
make resumption permanent and fix gold and silver as 
the only basis, standard, and measure of values recognized 
by the Constitution. The proposition to restore our con- 
stitutional and safe basis of value for all money is called 
' tinkering with the finances.' To this complexion have 
we come — that a proposition to adopt measures of admit- 



128 I^U'K f'F THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ted safety and wisdom to secure a permanent prosperity 
is called ' tinkering with tlie finances.' 

" Mr. President, such a condition of sentiment alarms 
me, and only causes me to be more vigorous in my efforts 
to secure my countrymen against such manifest dangers. 

'' When I see error so supported, my efforts will be re- 
doubled to defend the country against it — to warn my asso- 
ciates here, and my countrymen everywhere, against the 
seductions of false measures of finance and the necessity 
of securing a sound basis for their business prosperity. 

" This assumed legal-tender power is like the germ of a 
deadly fever, that needs only the heat of excitement, of 
speculation, of war, or of distress to develoj) its deadly 
powers ; and it is while it is dormant that I would put an 
end to its existence. . . . 

" The stock of gold and silver in this country was never 
so large as it is to-day. 

" The report of the director of the mint informs us the 
amount of coin and bullion in the country, on Octo- 
ber 31, 1879, was, of gold, $355,681,532, and of silver, 
$126,009,537 ; making a total of $481,691,069. And he 
says : ' Should the unprecedented flow of gold continue 
from foreign countries unchecked by its reaction upon 
prices here and abroad, the metallic circulation of the 
country at the end of the fiscal year (June 30, 1880) 
will have swollen to over $600,000,000. 

" Wisely appreciating this high tide of opportunity, the 
banks are converting their reserves >into coin ; and a table 
furnished me by the Comptroller of the Currency will 
show that by far the greater j^ortion of the reserves of 
the banks (which are largely in excess of legal require- 
ment) consist to-day of coin. 

" Mr. President, centralization of power in any govern- 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 129 

ment is to be dreaded. Under it ' the individual with- 
ers,' and local self government, in which are grown the 
seeds of hardy, self-reliant virtues and capacities, is de- 
stroyed. If this be true of other governments and peo- 
ples, how especially true of our own, where a territory so 
vast, embracing populations so heterogeneous in race, 
pursuits, and traditions, are brought into a union under a 
single Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land. 
The gradual absorption of jurisdiction by the general 
government in so many ways during the past fifteen years, 
its invasion of the domain of the States, its interference 
with subjects and matters so essentially proper for local ' 
cognizance and control, have justly alarmed those who 
have at heart the preservation of the Union under our 
federal theory and constitutional government. 

" I believe this recognition is widespread, and the ne- 
cessity admitted of a re-diffusion and re-distribution of 
powers which, in the emergencies and heat of civil war, 
have been unduly absorbed by the national government. 
Let us call to mind the legend upon our national seal, 
' E plurihis unmn ' — that the States form a %mio7i ' out 
of many' — not a unit. But let me ask, what act of 
centralization is so potent or in any degree equals that 
which assumes to create values by the fiat of Congress, 
and compels such values to be accepted as an equivalent 
for any indebtedness ? In my view, all other steps to 
centralization are as nothing compared to this. 

" Ten years ago I endeavored in vain to impress this 
Senate with the manifest and paramount duty of restoring 
and establishing a sound currency, a 7\\(l money of daily 
measure of all contracts. 

" In a speech made by me March 7, 1870, on the fund- 
ing bill, I endeavored to show how much more pressing 



130 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and important was tlie need of a sound foundation for all 
contracts than a prepayment and refunding of our bonds 
not due. 

" But my efforts were in vain, and the deplorable policy 
inaugurated by Mr. Boutwell in liis administration of the 
treasury was continued. From 1869 to 1875 the sale of 
nearly $500,000,000 of gold coin received from customs 
duties and its investment in United States bonds at high 
premiums was continued, and all that time the currency 
was suffered to stand imredeemed, and no step taken to 
resume specie payment. Such a policy precluded re- 
' sumption, and to it I attribute in a large degree the suf- 
ferings which followed the crash of 18 73. 

" What I have said to-day is little more than repetition 
of what I have been moved to say more than once before, 
in regard to which I have been vindicated by events. 

"I wish to say a few words to explain why the resolu- 
tion before the Senate does not allow the United States 
notes to be received 'for duties on imj^orts or interest on 
the public debt.' 

" By the act of February 25, 1862, under which the 
first issue of these notes was authorized, it was, in section 
1, expressly provided that — • 

" 'Notes herein authorized sliali be recoivahle in payment of all 
taxes, internal duties, excises, debts, and demands of every kind due 
to the United States except duties on imports^ and of all claims and 
demands against the United States of every kind whatsoever except 
for interest upon honds and notes, w/uch shall he 2^fiid in coin, etc' 

" And by section 5 of the same act it Avas provided : 

" ' Seo. 5. And be it further enacted, That all duties on imported 
goods shall be paid in coin, or in notes payable on demand hereto- 
fore authorized to bo issued and by law receivable in payment of 



FINANCE AND THE CURRENCY. 131 

public dues, and the coin so paid sliiill be set apart as a special fund, 
and shall be applied as follows : 

'First. To the payment in coin of the interest on the bonds and 
notes of the United States. 

'Second. To the purchase or payment of 1 per cent, of the entire 
debt of the United States, to be made within each fiscal year after 
the first day of July, 1862, which is to be set apart as a sinking fund, 
and the interest of which shall in like manner be applied to the pur- 
chase or payment of the public debt as the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury shall from time to time direct. 

'Third. The residue thereof to be paid into the treasury of the 
United States.' 

" I am unable to construe this law otherwise than as a 
distinct restriction of the notes — that they should never 
be receivable for duties on imports — and coupled with it 
the distinct pledge that these duties shall be paid in coin, 
and be ' set apart as a special fund ' for the security of 
the interest on the public debt. It was, in my judgment, 
unwise and derogatory to a government like our own thus 
to ' put in pledge ' any one of its sources of revenue spe- 
cially — it savored too much of pawnbrokerage — but it was 
nevertheless done, and the contract made by the author- 
ized agents of the American peo2:)le. It may seem useless, 
now that credit is established and the bonds above par, 
when they have been called in and exchanged, that this 
law should be enforced ; but the law of 1862 has never 
been repealed, but stood in full force as the utterance of 
the government when the new bonds went out in jjlace 
of old ones, and the inscription on the notes is the same 
as it originally was. I propose to be strict in the per- 
formance of public obligations, because we can not infuse 
the spirit of honor and good faith, nay, vherrhaa fides, 
too much into our public acts. It was for the security of 
the holders of our public obligations that these pledges 
were made, and they alone can release us from them. 



132 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

"It may seem now a useless formality to pay at the 
custom-house to the government the gold and silver coin 
we have drawn from its treasury on its own notes, but it 
is a formality carried out in a spirit of exact performance 
of a contract, and that alone makes it dignified and proper, 

" Mr. President, at much greater length than I desired 
I have expressed my reasons for urging the adoption of 
this resolution, and, in concluding, I can only say how 
incompetently I feel I have dealt with a great subject, 
profoundly affecting the happiness, the morals, the wel- 
fare of our country. But I have, at least, tried to treat 
the question in a worthy spirit, and do my best in the 
service of trutli and justice. Whether the Senate will 
concur in my views I know not, for a subject like this 
has never been and will never be made by me a subject 
of party caucus or personal canvass for votes ; but I be- 
lieve that good sense and right feeling are permanent and 
enduring forces in American politics, and in that faith I 
8hall rely upon these qualities vindicating themselves in 
the minds of my countrymen as time shall pass on. 

" The issue is nothing less than whether there shall be 
security to labor for its savings, to thrift and industry of 
their just results. The painful earnings of daily toil and 
the accumulated wealth of generations are alike involved, 
the creation of property by labor and its transmission to 
posterity are all alike affected by what I have proposed, 
and, not being a believer in coiigressional alchemy, I ask 
that we now abandon any further attempts to make it 
successful." 



CHAPTER YIIL 

TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 

When Senator Bayard first came into Congress the 
revenue and fiscal service of the country was one of the 
most extortionate and oppressive ever recorded in history. 
It rested upon favoritism and class legislation, yet, a few 
years before he took his seat in the Senate, there had been 
extorted from the country some $650,000,000 in a single 
year by those questionable modes of taxation. The in- 
ternal revenue system was obstructive and inquisitorial. 
The tariff laid duties upon some four thousand articles, 
for the benefits mainly of manufacturers in a few local- 
ities and few in number. Mr. Bayard, in coming to Con- 
gress, could truly say that he had had nothing to do with 
the enactment and the perj^etuation of this disastrous sys- 
tem ; and the section of the State of Delaware from which 
he was mainly elected was much more interested in manu- 
factures than in agriculture. Wilmington is in many re- 
spects an offshoot from Philadelphia, and few men enter 
Congress from Philadelphia, no matter what may be their 
views in regard to federal politics, who are not avowed 
and active and sermceaMe protectionists in regard to rev- 
enue matters. In this respect Democrats and Kepubli- 
cans have equally agreed, and the policy of quieta non 
movers was long since very generally accepted. 

Mr. Bayard, however, was a Democrat after an older 



13-1 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and better order. lie knew how the country was siTtler- 
ing in consequence of these oppressive tax laws, and, while 
lie heartily sympathized with the desire of his fellow 
citizens in Wilmington and other j)arts of the country to 
build up, extend, and diversify their industries, he did not 
believe they should be permitted to do this at the expense 
of the whole country. He saw, moreover, that, under the 
system of federal taxation for purposes of internal and 
customs revenue, the burden of the general taxes paid 
was much more costly even to the manufacturers of Wil- 
mington than the specific measure of protection derived 
by them from the tariff. The system gave them the 
chance of taking in two cents extra in the shape of illicit 
profits, but compelled them to pay four cents in extra ex- 
penses. It was a lottery, in which, for every $100,000 
worth of prizes awarded, the subscribers paid in $200,000. 

Mr. Bayard was, besides, a strict constructionist of the 
Constitution, and he did not believe that the grant of 
power to raise revenue conveyed with it the power like- 
wise to extend " protection." He did not believe that the 
power of Congress to derive income for the government 
upon the imports of iron from Cardiff could be stretched 
into a power to prevent these imports for the benefit of 
forges in Pennsylvania, so that every buyer of iron, in 
any shape, in the whole country through, had to pay these 
high duties to the home manufacturer, while the govern- 
ment derived no funds at all from the duties imposed by 
it to bring revenue in. If duties could he laid at all by 
governnient, they could only be laid for revenue ; and, if 
tliey did not result in revenue, but, instead of that, in tax- 
ation of all classes for the benefit of one class, or a few 
classes, they were unconstitutional, and should be repealed. 

There can be no mistake in regard to Mr. Bayard's 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 135 

views upon such matters. lie believes that there is no 
power under the Constitution to frame tariffs upon this 
principle, and that if the power did exist it would be in- 
expedient to exercise it. " I need scarcely say here," he 
remarked in connection with the bill providing for the 
Centennial Exhibition,* " to those who have taken the 
trouble to note my com-se on legislation, that I am a strict 
constructionist of powers under the Constitution. I be- 
lieve that ours is a government only of special and enu- 
merated powers, and not of general and unlimited pow- 
ers ; but I am unwilling to say that language which has 
been placed so carefully, not simply in the preamble of 
the Constitution, but carried affirmatively a second time 
into the very enumeration of the powers delegated to 
Congress, "was placed there so that it should have no ef- 
fect, and to be mere idle words which can be left out of 
consideration at wull. . . . That is the most familiar, and, 
in my opinion, the safest principle of construction of the 
Constitution — expTessum facit cessare taciturn — that, in 
construing a grant of express power in the Constitution, 
you can not ingraft upon that an implied power. . . . One 
of the troubles of our times," Mr. Bayard said in another 
speech,! " is that so many well-meaning and respectable 
persons consider that everything that is right in itself 
should necessarily be performed by the Congress of the 
United States, forgetting that this is a government of 
limited, enumerated, and delegated powers, and that the 
desirability of a measure is no test whatever of the right 
of Congress to enact it into a law. I believe, sir, it is an 
indifference to this truth, and it is a disregard of this 
truth, that has led this country into most of the difficul- 

* February 26, IS"?*. 

f Liquor Traffic Commission, February 26, 1874. 



jog LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ties from wliich wc have suffered and which still sur- 
round us." 

So, in regard to subsidies, Mr. Bayard stands upon the 
general idea, and demands * " upon what principle, except 
that of using the associated powders of the government to 
interfere with competitors and certain individual enter- 
prises, can you bestow hountles uj)on selected individuals 
and confine those bounties to favored cases? " That sen- 
tence embodies in a nutshell the whole proposition in 
favor of protection, and, even in stating, refutes it, not 
only upon the issue of constitutionality, but upon that of 
good policy also. For, as Mr. Bayard says in another 
part of this same speech, " There are other reasons why 
in our form of government such propositions are espe- 
cially dangerous and difficult. In the past, one of the 
.great difiiculties in the history of our government has 
been the prevention of local jealousies and discontents 
proceeding from supposed inequitable and unjust adminis- 
tration of government favor. The expenditures of money 
in one part of this country or the other, the passage of 
laws that were supposed to work favorably to one section 
of the country at the expense of the other, have all given 
rise to great difiiculties in the past ; and no wdse and con- 
siderate legislator but will appreciate the great danger of 
exercising the power of granting government aid in local 
enterprises — and that one great clement of public safety 
is the restriction of this function of federal power to the 
minimum consistent with the execution of the essential 
powers of government. What is this principle of sub- 
sidy ? It is the assistance from the public treasury to 
indwidual enterprise ; it is a gratuity from tlie public 
treasury in aid of a priimte undertaldng Communism, 
* June 25, 1878, Roach Subsidy Bill. 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 137 

as I understand it, is tlie principle of acting tlirough the 
association of government as opposed to individual com- 
petition. Under governments where such doctrine does 
not prevail, individual competition is left to stand or fall, 
according to its own merit, energy, or force ; but where 
you shall array the associated powers of the government, 
and make them the controlling element of every enter- 
prise, you have what is termed communism." 

It must be understood, however, that in this matter of 
subsidy, of tariff, as likewise in the kindred subjects of 
the banks and the entire fiscal system of the government, 
Mr. Bayard is a reformer, not a revolutionist. There are 
many things, the result of Republican misrule and of the 
riot of unchecked power since 1861, which he wants to 
see reconstructed and reformed. But it is part of this 
Senator's well-balanced and conservative instinct that he 
is not a destructive nor an obstructive in anything. He 
does not wish for himself, nor does he encourage or coun- 
tenance his party, to pull down anything until the time is 
ripe to substitute something better in its place. " I do not 
favor sudden changes," said he, in his first speech on the 
financial question.* " Festina lente is a wise maxim for 
governments as well as individuals, and reforms to be 
wholesome must be gradual. This is one of the sources 
of the strength of the English government, from whom it 
is wise that we should borrow lessons of experience. Their 
reforms have been gradual and not sudden, so that the peo- 
ple of that country have had timely warning and opportu- 
nity to accommodate their affairs to meet the proposed 
alterations in the governmental system." 

He knows how the present revenue system was set in 
motion in 1861, how unjustly and invidiously, with what 

* March 7, 1870. 



138 Lira OF THOMAS F. BAYAKD. 

iiiiduiglit liaste ami utter disregard of all propriety, ad- 
vantage was taken of the secession of some Southern 
States and the consequent defection of Southern sena- 
tors,* to hurry through a bill substituting an entirely new 
tarilf system for that which had been maintained by so 
many Democratic administrations to the material benefit 
of the country. He knew how this first tariff effort of 
Mr. Morrill and his friends had been retouched and ex- 
panded until it culminated in the Morrill tariffs of 18G5 
and 1866, the most monstrous revenue system ever con- 
trived for hampering the industries of an enlightened 
people. Mr. Bayard knew how the people were op- 
pressed and stifled under the burdens and inequalities of 
this system, but he knew also that under it industries had 
sprung into existence, capital had been largely invested 
and labor diverted into new channels, and that any sud- 
den and violent changes would visit complete, irremedi- 
able, and unmerited disaster upon these. He knew, 
finally, that the government must have revenue, and 
that, to obtain this, it must, in part at least, in pursuance 
of old established precedent, continue to depend upon 
that form of indirect taxation known as tariif duties — not 
abstractly the best mod'e of impost, but that which people 
tolerate with the least complaint, so long as it is prudently 
and fairly levied. Hence, Mr. Bayard entered the Sen- 
ate, not as a free-trader, but as a revenue reformer, an 
advocate of tariffs so far as needed to yield necessary 
revenue, but no further. Taxation, he held, was a neces- 
sary evil, but an evil still. Therefore, expenses should 
be reduced to their minimum, and simplicity and econ- 
omy should rule in every department of the government, 
in order to keep the evil of taxation down to its mini- 
* In MiiruU, 18G1. 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 139 

mum likewise. Revenue reform, in Mr. Bayard's view, 
meant three very essential things : It meant the defense 
of the people from an oppressive volume of tariff taxes ; 
it meant their further protection from the still heavier 
burden of a class legislation which, while it produced 
one dollar to the government, taxed the peoj^le six dol- 
lars, by compelling them to purchase necessary goods and 
articles from favored manufacturers, whose industries had 
become monopolies, defended by act of Congress ; and it 
meant, finally, by curtailing revenue and expenditures, 
to put a period to the disgraces of official corruption and 
profligacy. 

Mr. Bayard was never doctrinaire, but always practi- 
cal and matter-of-fact in treating these important ques- 
tions. He asked himself in regard to every part of the 
revenue system : " Does the Constitution allow it ? Is it 
expedient to be done ? Will it advance the public inter- 
ests if done ? " These simple rules of conduct have en- 
abled the Senator to initiate and carry through some sub- 
stantial and valuable reforms, which have given material 
and valuable relief to the mercantile and commercial 
communities. How practical he is, how humane, how 
Httle wedded to abstract ideas in the face of solid refomis, 
let a word of his in discussing the tariff bill of 18Y0 bear 
witness to. The question was on the taxation of official 
salaries, which Mr, Sherman upheld, but Mr, Bayard 
said : " I think that every reason which existed for the 
repeal of the income tax exists for the repeal of this tax 
upon salaries. Salaries are the remuneration for labor — 
a fixed compensation ; and I regret that this discrimina- 
tion, or this tax that we have refused to continue on all 
j other sources of income, should continue on a very hard- 
\ worked and poorly paid class of people, and a class of 
7 



140 LI™ OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

people who have no means of getting rid of their tax in 
the way tliat one class had who have been relieved, to 
wit, the landlords and property-owners of the country. 
There is no means by which this class can escape from 
the bm'den hereby imposed. I should be very sorry, 
wliile any private income I might have derived from any 
other source than my salary here should be exempted, to 
still continue a tax upon the salaries of officers, clerks, 
and others, poorly paid, as I have said, in the main, for 
the labor they have done. I trust the Senate will not 
agree to it.'' 

This tariff act of 1870 very sensibly reduced the bur- 
den of general taxation, though it intensified the injustice 
of " protection " in a great many individual instances, and 
the sugar schedule, in particular, was a monstrous abor- 
tion, which has destroyed the importing interest, prevents 
the consumption of raw sugars, has eaten up the capital of 
honest refiners and driven them out of the trade, deliver- 
ing over to their successors the entire control, manipula- 
tion, and distribution of the sugar supplies of 45,000,000 
people, consuming 1,800,000,000 pounds of sugar every 
year. Mr. Bayard argued as strenuously for the good fea- 
tures of this tariff bill as he combated its unjust ones. 
In his speech of June 23, 1870,* he took strong gi-ound 
against the income tax, especially in regard to its dis- 
criminative features. This discrimination against prop- 
ei-ty per se^ Mr. Bayard argued, was most unjust, and most 
unjustifiable. " It was discrimination against the measure 
of property. It was defensible on no grounds on which 
laws should ever rest. It was in effect a punishment for 
tlie possession of wealth, and tending to deter men from 

* Appeiulix to "Congressional Globe," Forty-first Congress, 2d session, 
p. 522. 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 141 

following snccessfiilly all those pursuits wliicli a wise pub- 
lic policy is disposed to encourage." 

In tlie end of liis speech Mr. Bayard summed up the 
reasons which compelled him to vote against this bill, and 
which have made him the opponent of every bill of the 
same sort that has been introduced in Congress since he 
came there — "Mr. President," he said, "believing that 
this tax is under our written Constitution forbidden by the 
clauses which I have read ; believing it to be an unjust 
tax in its results ; believing its discriminations to be ut- 
terly unjust ; believing its exemptions to be utterly delu- 
sive, failing to aifect favorably those classes who appeal 
most to our sympathies and our sense of protection — I 
mean persons of a decent condition of life with fixed in- 
comes, drawn from the stock of incorporated companies, 
who are deprived of all benefit by this so-called exemption 
under the present form of our law ; believing this, and 
further, that the demoralization arising from the pressure 
upon men either to conceal the proper amount of their in- 
comes to escape tax, or upon those who are struggling under 
financial troubles to exaggerate their income in order to 
gain credit, and delude those to whom they are indebted ; 
believing it to be accompanied by inquisitorial features 
which tend to create discontent in the hearts of the citi- 
zens against the government under which they live — all 
these things justify me in expressing the hope, and I cer- 
tainly shall indicate it by my vote, that this income tax 
may cease to exist as a feature of American legislation." 

But there were other reasons why Mr. Bayard opposed 
the pei-petuation of the income tax. He believed that 
the revenue to be derived from this source could be 
obtained from the taxation of United States bonds, and 
this he strongly favored, both because it was equitable 



142 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and because public opinion generally consented to it, and 
demanded it as strongly as it repudiated the policy of 
perpetual income taxes. Mr. Bayard's views upon this 
subject are valuable as illustrating his force and character 
as a practical legislator, a profound believer in the " un- 
written law " of public opinion and that " common con- 
sent " which we weaken by confounding with the very 
ordinary and, as commonly used, unmeaning phrase, 
" common sense." Said Mr. Bayard : 

" The policy adopted by the treasury officials of the 
United States has forced these securities to something 
above their value in gold ; and yet the cry is that a gua- 
rantee, the advantage of which they have fully enjoyed 
and more, a guarantee that was upon its face temporary 
only, shall now be continued in their behalf for ever. 
Sir, I think as there has been no lack of favor to them, 
no short-handed allowance of good faith toward them, 
they should be satisfied now to take their rank with other 
classes of the citizens of the United States, and to be 
dealt with according to the same measure of even-handed 
justice. I would deal with them with perfect good faith ; 
but I would not exempt them from paying their fair 
share of the public burdens, nor discriminate in their 
favor against other classes of my countrymen. Then, sir, 
the object of this income tax having ceased, other means 
for procuring the same amount of public revenue being, 
as I have stated, directly at hand, the retention of this 
five per cent, upon the interest of the public debt, the 
same rate which it has been paying heretofore, a tax im- 
posed directly upon accumulated property, will, I think, 
amply supply the deficiency which may be caused to the 
public revenue from the destruction of this income tax 
upon other property. 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 14-3 

" Sir, it has been said that there is an opinion in the 
community more acute, more able, and more wise than 
that of even the wisest individual in it ; and that is the 
great result called public opinion. Manj men in the 
mass come to conclusions perfectly just and irresistibly 
true, for which, perhaps, they could give you but lame 
]-easons if they were pressed individually. It is what may 
be called the sum and essence of popular intelligence that 
forms to my mind one of the safest guides for legislation. 
1 do not believe that this income tax would have reached 
the unpopularity that it has, that it would be felt to be so 
injurious to the public as it is felt to be, if its evils were 
not real instead of imaginary. I do not think it would 
be difficult to trace the reasons why these evils should be 
felt, and be felt by the poorest man as well as by the 
most wealthy, simply for the causes that I have given 
here, of the easy method by which these burdens that are 
paid by the landlord and the capitalist in gross may be 
transferred to his dependents in detail. The consumer 
will pay it at last ; the poor tenant will i)ay it at last ; and 
you may take from the lands of the rich landlord what 
you please, he simply has an immediate remedy by tack- 
ing that amount to those from whom his revenues are de- 
rived. Such is the case ; such it has been ; such it always 
will be ; and, when the people of this country complain 
of the payment of a tax of that kind, they know precisely 
where the shoe pinches, and they best can judge of their 
own sufferings under it." 

The vexed question of reform in the " sugar schedule " 
agitates Congress and the country to-day, perhaps because 
the frauds under it are more glaring and conspicuous than 
they are in respect of some other provisions of the tariff. 
This schedule was put in very nearly its present shape at 



144 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

this session of 1870, from wliicli we Lave already quoted, 
and Mr. Bayard easily saw tlirougli and sharply denounced 
the new complications in the methods of taxing imported 
sugars which had been put forward by Mr. Schenck, of 
the House Committee of Ways and Means, and by Mr. 
Sherman, of the Senate Finance Committee, as tariff re- 
forms. Mr. Bayard would accept no such palpable and 
transparent sophistries. He made a short speech on the 
subject, and on the general matter of hurried tariff legis- 
lation,* which is representative of his ideas on sncli 
subjects, and full of wisdom and soundness. It affords 
another instance of the thesis which has been maintained 
throughout this entire sketch, that Mr. l^ayard is as sig- 
nally conservative as he is confessedly statesmanlike in all 
his view^s. 

" There is one proposition that I think will be assented 
to by all who hear me, and that is, that, in dealing with a 
question so broad as the rate of duties upon imports, a 
comprehensive view of the situation is demanded for 
anything like justice, or anything like a statesmanlike re- 
sult. How arc we asked at this time to consider this 
question of duties upon imports? AVhy, sir, not as a 
whole, not as a general system, not in a comprehensive 
glance at the interests of our entire country, with all our 
demands and with all our productions ; but we are called 
upon to consider it in a mere fragmentary state, as a mere 
patchwork upon this bill, in which necessarily yon will be 
prevented from doing justice, because you will exclude 
from your consideration nineteen twentieths of the in- 
terests which you ought to consider at the time you at- 
tempt to tax the rest. 

"I am not only strongly in favor of a reduction of 

* Juuc 27, IS 70. 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 145 

taxes, but I am an equally positive believer that in the 
amount of taxes now raised there can be far more com- 
fort and justice to the country by having them read- 
justed in different forms, and to fall with different 
weights than they now do. But can this be done now ? 
Is this a proper time, or is the Senate a proper body, 
to take up this question and consider it, as I say, only 
in this patched and fragmentary condition ? Why, sir, 
what was the result ? . . . I will simply say this : that 
of all exhibitions of human selfishness, of all short- 
sighted human selfishness that I have ever known in my 
life, that which I have witnessed in the past four weeks 
has exceeded all. What has it been ? A mere scramble 
for different interests rushing down here in the closing 
weeks of a session, each man anxious and willing to 
thrust his portion of public burden from his own shoul- 
ders, and pointing out the convenient back of some 
neighbor on whom it might rest. 

" It was not the dictate of justice ; it was not dictated 
in the broad light of necessity for the public welfare and 
a systematic reformation of public burdens. It was no- 
thing in the world but what I have described, some means 
by which individuals might profit, and that profit should 
be gained at the expense of some other member of soci- 
ety. I do not say tliis struggle of human interests will 
not always occur ; but I do say that over and above all 
that there must suspend the judgment of those who are 
unable to comprehend the entire field. In order that 
men should undertake to settle a tariff for a great nation 
like this, with all the variety of its demands, with all the 
intertwining of interests among a people so vast in num- 
ber, so varied in pursuits, with all the demands of so 
varied a climate and soil as our own, there should be at 



U6 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

least a full, large-iniuded grasp of the whole subject 
before you attempt to deal with any part in the frag- 
mentai-y way that is now proposed. ... If this list of 
tariff' duties is to be discussed, long time must be occu- 
pied in it ; each individual interest will wish to be repre- 
sented ; and there is none more interesting or more im- 
portant to the people at large than probably the very 
subject now under discussion. There are admitted de- 
fects in the present system of assessing and obtaining 
your duties ujDon sugar ; there are opportunities for 
fraud, opportunities for error, which result in injustice 
under our present system ; and yet, great as are these op- 
portnnities growing out of the complications of the law, 
and the difhculty of establishing this standard of color, 
Avhich is the one resorted to as a test of duty, the proposi- 
tions of the finance committee in this respect rather in- 
crease than diminish them. I do not say they do not 
I^lace the matter on a fairer basis in the abstract, but I 
say that, practically speaking, they increase all the dith- 
culties of the j)resent law. 

" Sir, there is one other matter in this affecting ques- 
tions of commerce ; and that is, that although a law is 
perhaps unjust in itself, yet if it has been suffered to 
solidify by time, and the interests of commercial men 
have been suffered to accommodate themselves to its ex- 
istence, it is better to keep it, though it is defective, than 
by sudden changes to disarrange the arrangements of men 
in commerce. What contracts may have been made by 
merchants upon the basis of existing duties I do not 
know ; but no doubt they have been large and important. 
There can be no doubt that Avhile some men may be bene- 
fited, the great mass of those engaged in a particular 
trade are injured, by a sudden dislocation of the rates of 



TARIFF AND RF.VENUE REFORM. 147 

duties, and a change in either tlie mode of collecting them 
or in the amount to be collected. . . . Let the tariff stand 
as it is until the next session of Congress, when it may be 
examined, not in parts, not in this fragmentary way, but 
as a comprehensive whole. It should be certainly a sys- 
tem and not a simple statutory remedy, picking out here 
and there some article w-hich is to be favored by what is 
termed protection, or else to be put npon the free list in 
order to benefit in some other way equally selfish some 
manufacturer. I trust that in these cases and in all 
others the present rate of duties upon imports will be 
retained, without regard so much to the merits of the 
individual proposition taken by itself in part as this, that 
when a change of the tariff is made it shall be made in 
obedience to a comprehensive system of alteration." 

The tariff attorneys in and out of Congress had so ar- 
ranged matters as to bring the House bill into the Senate 
just at the tail-end of the session. They now further pro- 
posed (June 28, ISTO), on a resolution offered by Mr. John 
Sherman, then chairman of the Senate Finance Commit- 
tee, as he is now Secretary of the Treasury, " that the 
debate on House bill ISTo. 2,045, to reduce taxation, shall 
after to-day be confined to debate of not exceeding five 
minutes by each senator on the amendment pending, 
when such debate arises." This resolution, though without 
any precedent in the history of the Senate, was adopted 
by quasi unanimous consent, but not before Mr. Bayard 
liad emphasized his objections to any gag-law of the sort. 
'• I take leave to say," he said, " that there are in this bill 
features that can not reasonably and justly be discussed 
in the time stated. There are propositions in this bill to 
which I, in advance, avow my utmost opposition ; there are 
propositions in this bill to make the people of this country 



148 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

pay tribute to a limited number of individuals, the paten- 
tees of certain processes of manufacture, that can not have 
all said that ought to be said against them, and that 
would be said, but for the interference of this rule, within 
the short space of five minutes," 

In another speech in the debate on this same tariff, 
Mr. Bayard adverted to ad valorem duties. Such a tariff 
he regarded as a misfortune. " It requires in the first 
place a system of oaths from the importers. The system 
is to set the oaths of men, their sense of truth, against 
their pecimiary interests / and I am sorry to say that the 
history of mankind shows that those two matters can sel- 
dom come into collision without injury to the former." 
These views are in pointed illustration of Mr. Bayard's 
principles, that " it is vain to sing paeans to public credit 
and to national honor, and do those things that make it 
impossible to preserve either." 

Let us now glance at Mr. Bayard as a practical reve- 
nue reformer. "VYe have already briefly alluded to his 
position, with Senator Casserly, in the minority of the 
Senate Committee on Investigation and Retrenchment. 
That committee reported in June, 1872, and, in spite of the 
fact that the Senate took no action, and the "White House 
would not desert its favorites " under fire," and all the 
corrupt influences of the New York Custom-Ilouse were 
brought into line to keep things in statu quo, the general- 
order system of warehousing was abandoned, Leet and 
Stocking forced out of business, Collector Murphy re- 
moved, and the moieties to informers broken up. All 
this was in consequence of the facts brought out by Mr. 
P)ayard and Mr. Casserly, and the strong public feeling 
which they called into action. 

These matters are worth discussing just now, for the 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 149 

system wliicli Mr. Bayard condemned and exposed was 
not only tolerated and encouraged, it was in great meas- 
ure edahHshed^ by General Grant and liis understrappers 
in and out of Congress. General Grant is again before the 
people soliciting a third term in the presidency, and his 
pretensions are eagerly sustained and urged by the old 
Custom-house ring of New York. 

The Committee on Investigation and Retrenchment 
was charged to investigate alleged abuses and extortions 
in connection with the general order warehouse business, 
the monopoly of which, with enormous profits, was prac- 
tically in the hands of George K. Leet, said to have liad 
"some connection " with the White House ; to find out 
what was the " mysterious power " sustaining this scandal- 
ous system of robbery against the voice of the merchants 
of New York and the judgment and voice of the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury himself ; to discover if unlawful 
charges w^ere made for cartage and storage ; if customs 
ofiicers took bribes (" presents," they were called) ; if they 
connived at " irregular practices " (another name for 
smuggling) ; if merchandise was stolen in transitu ; if 
compromises with merchants under the moiety system led 
to losses of revenue, and finally, "whether the patronage, 
officers, or employees of said custom-house were used to 
influence or control either or both of the last two State 
conventions of the Eepublican party in New York, and 
whether assessments of money have been made, or contri- 
butions of money exacted, to be used to control primaries, 
secure delegates to State conventions or for other political 
purposes, and whether any of the said ofiicers in said cus- 
tom-house have been or are used as instruments of politi- 
cal or party patronage." 

"When only a part of the testimony liad been taken. 



150 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

the investigation threatened to be so damaging to those 
involved that it was cut short, and the majority of the 
committee, without intimating the fact or consulting with 
the minority about it, prepared and adopted a " white- 
washing " report. This report, in manuscript, was sub- 
mitted in the last hours of the session, when there was no 
possible chance to examine and consider it promptly, and 
when Mr. Bayard was absent as one of a committee of 
conference on the tariff bill. The minority report, there- 
foi'c, of Senators Bayard and Casserly was necessarily a 
hurried and incomplete document, yet it M^as able to ac- 
complish all that we have said. After premising that, in 
consequence of New York city being the great gateway of 
our commerce, the chief officer of customs there occupies 
a position and becomes an officer scarcely second to a 
cabinet officer in national importance, the report pro- 
ceeds to consider the abuses which have grown up in this 
office in consequence of partisan mismanagement. The 
history of the general-order stores and bonded warehouse 
system is given, and it is shown that there was no mal- 
administration until " the young man Leet " was forced 
upon Collector Grinnell by a note of recommendation 
which he bore from President Grant, which practically was 
a mandate to appoint him. In Leet's behalf Grinnell 
withdrew the general-order privilege from the steamshij) 
warehouses in Jersey City, causing great injury and loss 
to New York commerce. Under Leet's system, it cost 
fourteen per cent, more to store goods for forty-eight 
hours in a New York bonded warehouse than it did to 
transport them across the Atlantic. When Grinnell de- 
clined to give to Leet and his partner, Stocking, the en^ 
tire monopoly of this general-order business, he was re- 
moved by the President, and Thomas Murj^hy became 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 151 

collector. Murphy proved more pliant, and, as the minor- 
ity report sliows, '•'■ from September, IS TO, onward and un- 
til after the committee had left New York in Febniary, 
1872, the general-order business was a monopoly in the 
hands of Leet and Stocking, who concentrated it in the 
two localities above stated. Backed by the official sanc- 
tion of the custom-house, this monopoly became grossly 
exacting and oppressive to the merchants of New York. 
Their charges for storage, cartage, and labor were enor- 
mously increased, and delay, inconvenience, and loss fol- 
lowed to the community." 

The testimony of leading merchants, such as A. T, 
Stewart, H. B. Claflin, B. H. Hutten, C. W. Schultz, and 
others, mainly elicited upon cross-examination by Mr. 
Bayard, went to prove that Leet's charges were double 
those formerly made, double what was needed, and that 
goods liandled by him were not well guarded. It was 
proved that his profits were enormous, variously estimated 
at from $60,000 to $200,000 a year, and it was partly 
proved that somebody in Washington, and near the 
White House — some of " the mess " to which Leet had 
belonged — probably shared these profits with him. Leet's 
clerks testified that the books of the firm were never 
balanced, nor could the committee get these books before 
them. The entire capital put by these adventurers in 
their business was $1,000 in cash, advanced by a third 
party, and Leet's " certificate " from Grant, stating that 
he had been the General's headquarters clerk at Yicks- 
burg, and enjoyed his confidence. 

The minority showed also tliat customs officers took 
bribes in defiance of the statutes making such action a 
criminal offense. These violations of law were habitual 
in every dejsartment of the service. Gross frauds were 



152 I'IFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

also shown to be probable and likely in the weighing and 
appraising of merchandise. It was proved that merchants 
were held at the mercy of spies and informers under the 
" general-warrant " system, by which a promiscuous seiz- 
ure of books and papers and a general obstruction of 
business was allowed. It was proved that these seizures 
were often made, and that merchants were forced to pay 
heavy sums in " compromise," in order to save themselves 
from ruin. The system encouraged gross corruption in 
the detective officers, and encouraged merchants also to 
commit crimes against the revenue. As the minority 
report aptly said: "What would be thought of the ad-- 
ministration of law which permitted a forger to go free 
upon repaying the amount he had gained by the commis- 
sion of his crime ? How would counterfeiting be stopped 
if the false money could be redeemed by good and the 
offense wiped out? or if the robber, who was caught 
coming from your premises with his plunder, should 
relinquish his basket of plate and go unwhipped of jus- 
tice? Yet such is precisely the present system of dis- 
posing of highly penal offenses against the revenue. 
kSuch is the result and consequence of settlement and com- 
promise for offenses for violations of the revenue laws, 
as systematically conducted by United States treasury 
agents, district attorneys, informers, and seizure-bureau 
officials. Who can doubt that one resolute prosecution to 
conviction, the presence of one dishonest importing mer- 
chant in the prisoner's dock, the consignment of one such 
criminal to the penitentiary of the State, would do more 
to reform abuses and discourage frauds upon the revenue 
than a thousand compromises and settlements? Who 
can estimate," the report adds, " the amount of undis- 
covered frauds and their cost to the government ? The 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 153 

object of tlie informer being gain alone, a bribe of supe- 
rior dimensions to the informer's share would at any 
time secure his silence, and perhaps connivance. When 
a government relies upon nothing higher than the love of 
money in its public service, it may well doubt the security 
of its revenues." 

It was proved that officials made extravagant gains 
from forfeitures and amercements. The naval officer's 
share from these sources, above his handsome salary, was 
$114,70^.27, and that of the surveyor $101,206.12, all in 
four years, besides a divisible interest, to a much larger 
amount, in undetermined seizure cases. It was j)roved 
that Jayne, Howe, Brush, Chalker, and other special 
treasury agents, in their search after moieties, stooped to 
bribe the clerks and confidential employees of merchants 
to betray their most private affairs. '' Can such abomina- 
tions as these," said Messrs. Bayard and Casserly, "be 
justified by the pretense that they are meant to prevent 
or punish frauds u23on the revenue ? Who will not say 
that the remedy is not ten times worse than the disease ? 
What security is there that the bookkeeper or clerk so 
suborned by the informer shall not make such entries in 
the books of the merchant, unknown to him, as would be 
proof almost conclusive of criminality ? Such a system 
would honeycomb society with fraud and dissimulation, 
and banish all confidence between men." 

The minority report finally exposed the New York 
Custom-IIouse as a pohtical engine in such an eifectual 
way as to compel the men who came after Grant to pre- 
tend at least to prohibit government employees from 
levying assessments, and " managing " primary elections. 
All the reforms either made, or mapped in this direction, 
started from the disclosures embodied in this report of 



154 LIf"E OF THOMAS F. EAYARD. 

Messrs. Bayard and Casserlj. The Liberal Eepublican 
revolt in 1872 and tlie very liberal Republican platform 
(not acted up to) of 1876 are among the other fruits of 
what the report revealed. On these subjects is said, 
among other things : 

" Of the utter demoralization and wide-spread injury 
to the public service caused by this perversion of official 
power and abuse of the patronage inherent in the bestow- 
ing of public office, we have abundant and conclusive 
testimony. Indeed, the frauds, the misdemeanors, defal- 
cations, and abuses to which we have referred in the fore- 
going pages, have their well-spring in the necessary 
corruptions that flow from the prostitution of appoint- 
ments in the civil service to mere party ends. It would 
be a Utopian idea that so vast a machine as the New York 
Custom-House could be operated without the incidental 
results of human frailty and sin. But when the govern- 
ing ideas of such an institution are based upon the very 
lowest views of j)olitical morality and partisan expe- 
diency, the result must necessarily be such as is disclosed 
by the present testimony." 

It proved that the Custom-House ring was in sympathy 
with and friendly to the " Tammany ring," had intimate 
relations with and did underhand work for Tweed, 
Sweeney, Connelly, Smith, and Hall. In those palmy 
days, Mr. Alonzo B. Cornell, Conkling's present gov- 
ernor of New York, was naval officer at the port, and 
then, as now, a strenuous adherent of General Grant's. 
The conclusions to which Messrs. Bayard and Casserly. 
came have peculiar value. They cover the whole subject 
of civil service reform, and how to effect it, and they ex- 
press Mr. Bayard's views in regard to this most impor- 
tant matter. . 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 155 

" We believe," tlie report sajs, " that the extracts made 
of the testimony taken in this case, in relation to Mr, Mur- 
phy and his method of conducting the affairs of the collec- 
torship, will render it obvious that he was a very unlit man 
for the position, totally without a proper comprehension 
of its duties, and almost totally without the capacities to 
fulfill them. The tenure of the political office under his 
administration was made solely dependent upon bald 
partisan service, generally of the basest character. Merit 
in oflice was overlooked or disregarded, if it did not ac- 
company the most facile and slavish obedience to party 
demands. Personal unworthiness and profligacy were 
totally disregarded if unhesitating political adherence was 
given. The result was necessarily fatal to the public ser- 
vice. To be a good and reliable public oflScer means to 
be a reliable man and good citizen. The qualities that 
form our security in private life are our best safeguards 
in public life. A public ofiicial who will sacrifice his 
personal convictions of right and independence of thought 
to gain or keep an office will be unworthy of trust when 
in office. If such an example be set by those high in 
authority, nothing can be expected but that it will be 
followed by their subordinates. Like master, like man. 
If the collector of the port be nothing better than a ward 
politician, with the habits, instincts, and tone of his class, 
his subordinates will, very shortly, be found to follow and 
imitate him. If Mr. Murphy totally overlooked wdiat was 
due to the public service in making his appointments, if he 
bargained and sold the places of inspector, weigher, ganger, 
and the like, how could it be expected that his appointees 
would be faithful to the government, or that bribery and 
corruption, delinquency and abuse, should not mark nearly 
every department and feature of his administration ? " 



156 LII-'E OF TIIOxMAS F. BAYARD. 

As to the 25i"inci2)les regulating tenure of office, it 
says : " It seems to us that those principles of compensa- 
tion and employment which are found useful, and lead to 
success in the business affairs of private individuals, are 
not less true when applied to the public service. To 
make tenure of office dependent upon the mere will of 
the superior or upon the shifting tides of j^olitical party 
ascendancy, is a system which would soon lead to the 
bankruptcy of the private merchant who adopted it. By 
a course of reasoning equally apj^licable to public affairs, 
the government that adopts it must suffer. It can not 
well be denied that good behavior in office should be 
the only condition imposed upon permanent tenure ; that 
the public service should be the only thing to be regarded ; 
and the individual who performed that might feel assured 
that he would be allowed to enjoy his individual opinions 
upon political and other subjects in perfect self-respect 
and without fear of the frowns of his official superiors. 
Certain it is that this rule could safely be applied to all 
offices simply ministerial. In others of a grade that neces- 
sarily reflected the political policy of an administration, 
such as cabinet officers, it may be necessary, and probably 
is so, that concurrence of sentiment with the executive 
should be an additional condition of official tenure." 

And upon the general subject we find these very 
wise conclusions : " The principles of good government 
are, after all, although pi-ofound in their operation, very 
simple in their nature. At the very base, strict and rigid 
pecuniary honesty must lie. If this be wanting, if pecu- 
niary delinquencies shall be condoned because the public , 
treasury, and not an individual, is the sufferer, then from 
such an admission proceeds a whole catalogue of evils and 
corruption. If a man in official position bestows an officei 



TARIFF AND REVENUE REFORM. 157 

of trust and emolument upon another because he is a 
personal or political friend, and without regard to the fact 
whether he is competent and willing to render a just 
equivalent of service for the salary he receives, then the 
public treasury is defrauded, is robbed to the precise 
amount of that friend's defalcation in duty ; and in dis- 
honesty the crime is not proportioned to the amount that 
is taken, but to the departure from moral principle which 
is involved. Public men have no right to receive personal 
favors at public cost. They have no right to enrich them- 
selves, their families, or their friends, at public cost. It 
is a breach of trust wdien such things are permitted ; and 
no public service where they are tolerated can fail to be- 
come corrupt and worthless. 

" We have pointed out the evils that resulted from an 
unwise, impolitic law, such as that permitting the seizure 
of books and papers of merchants. But the great mass 
of the abuses to which we have referred are those of mal- 
administration ; and, until men shall be placed in power 
i who realize the requirements and are competent to un- 
; derstand and execute the duties of civil administration, 
[ without personal favor, and with a single eye to public 
! interests alone, the evils we have pointed out can not be 
: expected to diminish, but, on the contrary, to grow worse 
I and worse. 

: "The evils which have been proven to exist have 
t their source, as we have said and now here repeat, much 
i less in the existence of imiDerfect or mischievous laws 
I than in the want of capacity and fitness on the part of 
\ those who fill the offices. The fundamental cause of this 
; great abuse and the real responsibility for it are to be 
[ found in an improper administration of the aj^pointing 
power in the government. 



258 LIFE OF THOMAS R BAYARD. 

" By tlie Constitution and laws of the United States 
the President has plenary power over the civil service of 
the country. Xearly all appointments to office proceed 
directly or indirectly from him. By the Constitution he 
is commanded ' to take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed,' and by his oath of office he binds himself 
' faithfully to execute the office of President of the United 
States.' lie is to put fit men in office, and to see that 
the laws do not fail of execution by their misconduct. 

" His power over the subject is exclusive. So is his 
responsibility. His duty is equally plain and paramount. 

" Plaving all the power necessary, if he has the capa- 
city and will to give to the country an honest, efficient 
civil service, he will do it. If he fails to bestow this 
great blessing on the people, it is not for want of power 
in himself. It can only be for want of either the will or 
the capacity ; it may be, of both. Whatever the cause, 
the evils of his failure are manifold and serious. His 
abuses of the appointing power are reproduced with mis- 
chievous fidelity through the body of the subordinates in 
the civil service, to the scandal and oppression of the 
])oople, and the gradual general lowering of their moral 
tone. 

" The cure for the evil must be sought in the same 
high (piartcr where the evil had its rise. It is there that 
the power, the duty, and the responsibility lie. There 
the cuix! is to be applied. Anything short of this is tri- 
fling with the evil. It is dealing with the effect instead 
of with the cause." 



CHAPTER IX. 

" THIS IS A GOVEENMENT OF LAWS." 

Among the calamities which war brings in its train, 
there is none more pernicious or more lasting in its bale- 
ful effects than this : that it familiarizes a people with 
the substitution of the rule of force for the rule of law. 
The jealous vigilance with which any approach to ille- 
gality should be watched by a free people becomes re- 
laxed, or su]3erseded by a spirit of acquiescence, if not of 
submissiveness. During the late war so many violations 
of civil rights and order were perpetrated under the plea 
of military necessity that the j)eople grew callous, and, 
even where such necessity did not exist, looked on, per- 
haps with regret, but without astonishment, and almost 
without indignation. The war and its results established 
the radical leaders firmly in at least temporary power, and 
lifted one of the victorious commanders to the highest 
office in the country, and they must have had less than 
the common share of human frailty if they had not re- 
garded the modes and the instruments of their success 
with peculiar affection. 

By a natural confusion of thought they had fii'st iden- 
tified the country with the administration, and then with 
their own party ; and as once whoever canvassed the acts 
of the President was branded as disloyal, so now they 
could not help feeling that a dissenter from their views 



J,-,,) L1F1-: OF THOMAS V. BAYARD. 

c»r opposcr of their ])olicy must be a traitor at heart. To 
cast a Democratic ballot was an act differing only in de- 
cree, but not in kind, from firing a rebel bullet ; and a 
Democratic body elected to replace a Republican body 
was, in the view of these extremists, merely a hostile 
force that had surprised a fort, and must be dislodged at 
any cost. 

The President of the United States, a trained and 
veteran soldier, was naturally partial to those summary 
modes of procedure with which he was familiar, and 
which in his liands had proved so triumphantly effective ; 
and he was surrounded by advisers and subordinates who 
urged — if urging was needed— and eagerly applauded 
their use. When members of the legislature of a State 
were thrust from their hall by an officer of the United 
States army, at the head of a file of soldiers ; when a 
general of cavalry proposed, in time of peace, and with 
all the courts open, to deal with a community as " ban- 
ditti," a prompt and hearty approval from " all of us " 
fiashed back with lightning speed. No matter how com- 
plete the machinery of civil government, wherever there 
were " outrages," there the military must interfere ; and 
there were sure to be " outrages " in plenty just before 
an election, except in districts certain to be carried by the 
llepublicans, and there a halcyon calm prevailed. Of no 
use was it to expose the preposterous character of the 
testimony adduced, or to inquire how a handful of Dem- 
ocrats could " terrorize " overwhelming majorities of their 
political op])onents ; the spectres of '' Ku-Klux " and 
'' White-Leagues " were made to stalk solenndy up and 
down the halls of Congress until the farce could be 
pliiycd no longer. 

r.iit these things were not the worst, for from these 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 101 

tliore was sure to be a reaction ; worse tlian these was tlie 
growing indifference to law, tlie feeling that the party in 
power was entitled to have things their own way, which 
was the legitimate offspring of a loose construction of the 
Constitution, and that doctrine of " a higher law " in- 
vented to justify, and even to sanctify, profitable per- 

No wonder that the conservative minority in Congress 
did their utmost to check this growing demoralization, 
which was eating like a cancer into the very vitals of the 
country. Among these Mr. Bayard was constant in his 
warnings, not to the Senate alone, but to the whole peo- 
ple, that something far more momentous than party fail- 
ure or triumph was at stake — that nothing less than repub- 
lican government and free institutions were at stake, if 
the great truth were forgotten that " this is a government 
of laws." 

" Would to God ! " he exclaims, in his speech of Feb- 
ruary 15, 1870, on the admission of Mississippi to repre- 
sentation in Congress, " would to God the people of this 
broad land could fully roalize how fatal to the cause of 
civil liberty, how hostile to the very genius of our insti- 
tutions, is the doctrine of coercive powers, upon which 
now alone the radical party propose to govern this 
country. 

" When will the leaders of that party recognize the 
truth that the true strength of our government rests, not 
in the number of bayonets it can command to overawe 
and subdue local discontents, not in penal statutes and 
test-oaths and disfranchisements of the ablest and most 
intelligent citizens, but in the love and respect which 
exist in the hearts of our people toward it and their rul- 
ers ? That its ' cheap defense ' will be the ramparts which 



](\0 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

' patriotic sentiments shall construct to guard it, and that 
the ' consent of the governed ' is the only just and firm 
fuiindntion upon which we can build our hopes for the 
peipetiuitiun of the free Constitution of om- fathers, de- 
signed by them to be our shield and safeguard against all 
tyraimy and usui-jDation, whether from within or from 
without l '' 

And elsewhere in the same speech : 

" If the doctrines enunciated in the speech of the 
Senator [Carpenter] yesterday in regard to the limita- 
tions upon the centraKzing power of the federal govern- 
ment, in regard to the recognition of the wisdom and the 
necessity of leaving to the state governments the control 
of their local matters and institutions, matters which so 
necessarily and so reasonably belong to them, can be fol- 
lowed out, and can be brought in good faith into practice 
by the party of wdiich the Senator is so distinguished an 
ornament, I will rejoice in their success. The power 
and spoils of party which may attend their political suc- 
cess I shall not envy, nor disturb their enjoyment. To 
me the happiness of seeing ipy native land once more 
enjoying that civil and religious feeling which can only 
exist under a government of laws, under a government 
of well-defined and limited powers, will more than com- 
pensate for the absence of the supj^osed exultation conse- 
quent upon a mere partisan triumph." 

So in his speech of May 21, 1872, in opposition to the 
bill giving the President power to suspend the writ of 
halt as corpus in any State at his pleasure, thus giving 
really absolute and dictatorial power, and " substituting 
his irresponsible will for the safeguards of the Constitu- 
tif»n " — for so shamelessly reckless had the radical party 
grown, tliat they were not only willing but eager to lay 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 1G3 

the liberties of the whole country under the feet of a 
military, autocrat, rather than risk their own expulsion 
from power. 

" Mr. President, it is to me an appalling and fearful 
thing to witness how the frail bands of constitutional 
limitation are snapping and parting in the fire of party 
spirit and sectional animosity. It seems to me the prin- 
ciples on which our system of government was based are 
day by day more and more effaced, and their very exist- 
ence forgotten. Legislation by Congress seems day by 
day to be assuming the form and shape of mere military 
orders. Reason, argument, persuasion, moral power, are 
supplanted by the argument of arais. Our government 
is fast becoming a government of mere will, and a gov- 
ernment of laws is being forgotten or discarded. We 
have seen lately in this very chamber how the decisions 
of the judicial branch of our government are met by the 
majority. AVhen heat and passion have induced the pas- 
sage of an act by Congress violative of the Constitution, 
and therefore invalid, and in calm and temperate methods 
the Supreme Court of the United States, without a single 
voice of dissent, so declares it to be, loud and disrespect- 
ful denunciations of the exercise of just judicial preroga- 
tive are heard from the leaders of the majority ; denuncia- 
tions of the decision which thwarted their hostile intent, 
and something approaching threats against a coordinate 
and equal branch of the government. 

"And' let not the people of the Northern. States believe 
that this power so greedily asked for by the President, 
so shamelessly sought to be awarded him by his party 
friends in Congress, can be exercised or will be exercised 
to subjugate the Southern States, and destroy the liberties 
of that people alone. It is the first step that costs. That 
8 



ir,4 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

A\hieh is ])reteiided as a law to-day for but part of the 
country, a temporary law for part of the country, will 
shortly become the settled law for the whole country. 
The emergency of party, the needful party success, will 
be the only regulation that its authors and its executors 
will recognize." 

Yet monstrous as that bill was, it would have become 
the law of the land, had not the Liberal Republicans in 
the House joined the Democrats in defeating it. Here is 
its history, from Mr. Bayard's address at Wilmington, 
October 4, 1872 : 

" I know the history of those events. As one of your 
representatives in the Senate I witnessed them all. I 
know how close was the shave by which that wdcked and 
monstrous law was defeated ; and I know by whose aid 
the Democratic party was enabled, standing of course a 
solid phalanx itself, to thwart that disastrous attempt. 
Why, look at it. The Senate passed the bill to give this 
power for one year more to the President. There was 
full debate upon that in the Senate ; but you know how 
weak in numbers is the minority there. Then were heard, 
however, the voices of liberal and true men of the Re- 
publican party protesting against this act. They acted 
with the Democrats in endeavoring to prevent its passage, 
but in vain. It went to the House of Representatives ; 
fresher from the people, M'ith more responsibility for 
tlieir acts to the people, than many of those in the Senate. 
There the Liberal Republicans, acting with the Democrats, 
succeeded in tabling that bill, and laying it under some 
hundreds of measures that could not be acted upon, and 
refusing to give it precedence. 

" Then what happened ? In the Senate of the United 
States we were considering a bill to appropriate moneys 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 165 

for the expenses of the government. For the purpose of 
facilitating business, the Senate unanimously adopted a 
rule that no amendment but such as was germane to the 
appropriation bill should be received, and that but five 
minutes should be given to any one to debate any given 
subject ; it being a business measure entirely upon which 
lengthened discussion was out of place, and which the 
condition of the session rendered also impossible. The 
nomination of General Grant had been made. The 
nomination at Cincinnati had been made. The conclu- 
sion was almost foregone at that time that the Demo- 
cratic party would ratify the action of the Cincinnati 
Convention. At least there had been then so general an 
expression that such result was understood throughout 
the country to be highly probable, although there were 
many members of the Democratic party, among whom 
was he who now addresses you, in opposition to such 
action. In this emergency the Republican leaders, feel- 
ing that their position was desperate, that they must give 
this power to the President in order to re-elect himself, 
and to have this bayonet bill once more enforced over the 
entire country, in utterly dishonorable disregard of the 
intent and meaning of the rule they had adopted, pro- 
cured a fitting instrument to offer an amendment to a 
money bill, giving the President the right to suspend the 
writ of haheas corpus at his pleasure in any part of this 
country for another year. 

" The dishonorable proposition was immediately de 
nounced by the Democrats. It was debated; but the 
temporary Chairman of the Senate, forgetting what was 
due to himself and to his position, ruled the amendment 
to be in order. Upon a motion to take an appeal from 
his decision we were afforded a poor opportunity of de- 



1(3^] LIFE OF THOMAS F. DAYARD. 

bate, because, if the anieiidment Lad been received as in 
order, but iive minutes would have been given to discuss 
such a question, which, of course, would have been fruit- 
less and absurd. In order to bring before the people of 
this country the monstrous nature of this proposition, the 
little band of Democrats, throughout the whole of that 
weary night, discussed that question, so that the people 
might be aroused to the danger of the attempt that was 
being made, and that the House of Representatives might 
also be put upon their guard and understand the true 
nature of the question. But human endurance has its 
limits ; and those few worn and weary men, the Liberal 
Republicans and Democrats of the Senate, a scanty hand- 
ful, were at length compelled by sheer fatigue to aban- 
don the contest, and, as the gray light of dawn entered 
the Senate Chamber, that amendment was offered, and 
it was adopted by a vote of the Senate. 

" The bill went to the House, and what was its fate ? 
There spolce Democracy ; there spoke Liberal Republi- 
canism — both uttering the same voice and saying : ' Tliis 
dishonest act shall not become a law.' I well remember 
the anxious, weary hours that I and others in that Cham- 
ber passed in watching the fate of a bill that seemed to 
me to involve the fate of my country. What ! give to a 
candidate for re-election the right to take away the great 
Avrit of liberty from all his opponents ! Is it not enough 
to make you shudder ? Is it not enough to make men 
ashamed that such things ever were jDroposed ? Is it not 
enough, my friends, to make you feel grateful that there 
were Liberal Republicans to aid the Democrats in such 
an emergency." 

As President Grant was the ready and willing instru- 
ment to execute a policy that would have laid the whole 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 167 

American people prostrate beneath bis feet, and made 
constitutional government, a government of laws, mere 
things of the past, Mr. Bayard took occasion in the same 
speech to review his action, that, from what he had already- 
done, the people might judge what he was ready to do. 

" What rebuke has the President of the United States 
ever administered to a dishonest official ? What encour- 
agement has he ever held out to a pure and honorable 
one ? Early in the history of his administration there was 
a gentleman who was his Secretary of the Interior, whom I 
never heard spoken of by any man who knew him except 
in terms of resj^ect : I mean Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio. lie 
was a pure-minded, honest administrator. A proposition 
was made that all the clerks of his department should be 
assessed upon their salaries for political purposes, and Mr, 
Cox said nothino: of the kind should be done in his 
department ; that those men were there for public service ; 
it was optional with them what they should subscribe, but 
that he never would make himself a party to a scheme 
for raising partisan funds by assessing the wages of those 
overworked and ill-paid men. What was the result ? The 
political managers of the canvass were not satisfied because 
he would not make himself an instrument for this dis- 
reputable business. They went to the President with com- 
plaints that he would not do this dirty work of politics. 
What did the President do ? You know that he parted 
with that honest man; he sustained the corruptionists, 
and he let Mr. Cox retire from his cabinet, and refused to 
sustain him in the honest position he had taken. 

" While he turned Mr. Cox out of his cabinet because 
he would not league himself with these disreputable opera- 
tions for partisan purposes, he kept in his cabinet and 
close in his counsels Mr. Creswell, the same postmaster 



b 



168 LIFE or THOMAS F. I5AYARD. 

general Avho allowed the claim of one Chorpenning to his 
law jiartner, when he himself had previously examined it 
and disallowed it, when three postmasters general had 
previously disallowed it after full examination. Mr. Cres- 
well allowed a claim for $454,000 when the man who 
claimed it never had a just claim for one cent, and had 
really been paid three times more than he ought ever to 
have received. 

" I take the record, and I show you that Mr. Dawes, 
the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means of 
the House, came into Congress at the opening of the ses- 
sion in December, 18Y0, and introduced a resolution to 
repeal a former resolution, which had been obtained by 
fraud and misrepresentation, allowing the Chorpenning 
claim on the rcconmiendation of the postmaster general, or 
authorizing him to make the settlement. Mr. Dawes ex- 
plained the fraud, and the resolution under which Cres- 
well had acted to pay this claim was unanimously repealed. 
It came to the Senate, and it was also unanimously re- 
pealed there. The payment of the money was stopped ; 
it was saved to the treasury against Mr. Creswell's efforts 
to get it out ; and after that time twice, upon the statute 
book, stands a proviso to appropriations of money for pub- 
lic purpose that no portion of that money should go 
toward paying the claim known as the Chorpenning claim. 
This occurred two and a half years ago. It was one of 
the most scandalous things that ever occurred in Wash- 
ington. Yet Creswell is still held close in the councils 
of the present administration. 

" You have heard of Governor Ilolden, of North 
Carolina. You know, perhaps, that he was an ultra seces- 
sionist ; that he did his best to educate his people up to 
the doctrine of secession that carried North Carolina out 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 169 

of the Union ; that he was an ultra Southern man in all 
his doctrines ; that finally, when the war closed, and he 
found the cause of secession had failed, he whipped 
around, and became a violent Union man, so called, and 
took sides with tlie victoi'S ; that by dint of military and 
negro aid he was made the Governor of the State of 
North Carolina, and also the head of the Union League 
of that State, which embraced almost every black man 
within its limits ; that a legislature, elected by the like 
means, met and voted away bonds of the State to the 
amount of nearly $15,000,000 ; that this man assisted in 
the robbery and the beggary almost of his people ; that 
there is not to-day in North Carolina a hundred miles of 
good railroad to be seen for the $15,000,000 that were ex- 
pended for the purpose of creating them. The money ■ 
was stolen bodily by various people who were Holden's 
friends, and with his assistance and approval. An elec- 
tion followed. A legislature opposed to him was elect- 
ed. He was impeached and convicted. His conviction 
was accomplished by the votes of Republicans as well as 
Democrats in the legislature. He fled from North Caro- 
lina and took refuge in Washington, where a requisition 
could not reach him. He there became the editor of a 
Grant newspaper. Now, mark you, this is the case of a 
man who had connived at robbery, who fled from his own 
outraged peojile, and has remained away from them ever 
since. That man, with that record, a year and a half after 
these events, was nominated by President Grant to be 
our minister at Peru. This is another case of General 
Grant's appreciation of the necessity of honesty. 

" What shall I say of Bullock, of Georgia — the fellow 
who went down there and robbed those people out of 
some five or six millions, and then fled to Canada? I 



k 



170 LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

remember perfectly well when tliat scoundrel was in 
AVashin^on endeavoring to procure the aid of Congress, 
and did procure it, to get soldiers and disperse the legis- 
lature that would have impeached and removed him. He 
had the presidential ear. But they could not withstand 
the progress of public opinion. A legislature was elected 
which was honest in its sentiment. Honest men were 
driven together by their sufferings, independent of former 
political views ; and, when he fornid that his conduct was 
to be inquired into, Bullock ran away, and never will go 
back to Georgia, unless he goes back there to jail. 

" "What shall I say of Bowen, of South Carolina, who, 
after the war, became a violent partisan of the Northern 
government ? When the war closed and his party was 
defeated, he went to the strong side. This man came to 
Congress. He disgraced the country and his position by 
selling his cadetships. They turned him out of Congress. 
He went back to South Carolina and married two wives, 
having them both living at the same time. He was in- 
dicted for bigamy in the District of Columbia. He was 
convicted by a jury upon which were negroes, who were 
his particular friends ; and he had not been in jail two 
weeks before General Grant takes him by the hand and 
pardons him, just as Geary pardons this man Yerkes and 
the other fellow who was assisting Ilartranft in the rob- 
bery of the State of Pennsylvania. 

" AVhat shall I say in regard to the discoveries made 
in the city of New York by a committee of which I was 
a member during the last winter ? What shall I say in 
regard to all the rascality and robberies on the merchants 
of New York, which were there exposed ? Were they 
not proven ? Do not your public documents show you, 
not by statement of mine, but his own statement under 



" THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 171 

oath, that a young man, formerly one of General Grant's 
own aids, Leet, an unknown, obscure man, was enabled, 
by a letter written and signed by General Grant, to go 
to New York and extort from the collector a perquisite 
called the general-order business, by which he was ena- 
bled to make enormous sums annually by plundering the 
merchants in overcharging them for the storage and the 
labor on their goods. Those outrages were all laid before 
the public ; they were all printed at the time. The most 
efficient aid that that committee had in the discovery of 
frauds in New York was through Mr. Greeley, who him- 
self came as a witness before that committee, and exposed 
the dishonesty of the Republican party. 

" But, gentlemen, all these things appear on the rec- 
ord. Leet plundered the people of New York. General 
Grant was told of it. His former friend, Mr. Alexander 
T. Stewart, informed him of it. There was no ground 
to presume his ignorance. He knew it all — that a young 
man, not knowing a soul in New York, going there with 
nothing but General Grant's personal recommendation, 
who had been upon his staff, connected with him person- 
ally, had abused the confidence he had reposed in him, 
and that he was there plundering that community. The 
President knows that fact to-day ; he knew it two years 
ago ; and yet he has never lifted his finger to make him 
disgorge his plunder or to turn him out. 

" Take, further, his ideas of politics as developed by 
his friend, Mr. Thomas Murphy, of New York, the late 
collector. Mr. Murphy seems to have been on terms of 
confidential intimacy with General Grant. I have not 
the time nor the disposition to read you, as I could from 
the public documents, Mr. Murphy's own statements in 
regard to his acts, or to read you the conversations which 



17-J 



LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 



are sworn to in regard to Mr. Murphy's report from the 
President, of the part that the President wished the gov- 
ernment officials to take in the canvass, but they amount 
to this : that Mr. Murphy was authorized to sell, and did 
sell and barter, the government offices in the custom- 
house at New York in exchange for party power and 
deleo-ates to party conventions ; that he made merchan- 
dise of the public offices of the government just as much 
as any marketman sells his produce. He did it openly, 
notoriously, so that all knew of it. Finally, as you all 
know, so great was the storm of public feeling on the 
subject, so powerful was the denunciation of Murphy's 
dishonesty and improper action, that even General Grant 
was forced to inti unite that he would accept his resigna- 
tion, and when he left he received a letter of the most 
effusive nature, praising Mr. Murphy's honesty and good 
conduct in the public service. Indeed, the only effect 
which these shocking disclosures seem to have had upon 
the President is, that he ordered the prosecution of the 
merchants who had been compelled to pay money to his 
corrupt subordinates, and who disclosed the truth of these 
abuses before the committee. What is the President 
doing to-day in Pennsylvania ? Is he not sustaining a 
man running for governor who is confessedly corrupt, in 
whose aid the jails of the country are emptied in order 
that convicts may come out and speak in his favor, the 
speech in his favor being the price of their escape from 
justice ? 

" In all that wild carnival of dishonesty which has had 
no parallel in human history before, in the robbery of the 
SouthciTi States by the adventurers, black and white, who 
have settled there upon those unhappy people, when pub- 
lic treasuries are robbed, when individuals are robbed, 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OK LAWS." 173 

when offices are bought and sold, when scandals of tlic 
most infamous nature are exposed, constantly, I ask you 
whether one word has come in a presidential message, in 
a presidential speech, or in a presidential paper of any 
kind, to rebuke these things throughout that country ? 
Not one. 

" Therefore I say that pecuniary honesty, simple, rigid, 
and plain, which the humblest comprehension can under- 
stand, should be the corner-stone of a government. If it 
is not so, of course the larger the sphere of action, the 
more gross must the coriiiption become. What hope 
have we with an administration that sees no wrong in 
these things ? While I do not propose to make, but, on 
the contrary, have purposely abstained from making any 
charge that would link the President with the personal 
receipt of any portion of these ill-gotten gains, I do say 
without fear of contradiction that no rebuke of a dishon- 
est man in or out of office can be found in the official 
career of Ulysses S, Grant as President of the United 
States." 

When one calls to memory the eight years of Presi- 
dent Grant's administration, it seems almost inconceiv- 
able that the American people could have borne such 
things. Violence in one section of the country, fraud and 
rapacity in another, the laws and the Constitution tram- 
pled under foot, and the Murphys, the Durells, the Leets, 
the Caseys, the Bowens, the Belknaps, and the whole 
swarm whose names were to become a stench in men's 
nostrils, not merely unwhipped of justice, but carrying 
high their brazen foreheads, as the chosen friends of the 
Chief Magistrate, and the men whom he delighted to 
honor. It was urged as a noble trait in the President 
that he never forgot a friend or a service, and it was truly 



171 I'IFJ'' OK THOMAS V. BAYARD. 

urged. Kay, tlie coarser the service, the more vulgar the 
friend, the more certain the gratitude and the more sub- 
stantial tlie revrard. 

Those were the times that tested the courage, the pa- 
triotism, and the endurance of the minority in Congress. 
The majority seemed to think that they were above all 
responsibility, and superior to law. When the news came 
that De Trobriand with his soldiers had expelled by force 
the lawful members of a State legislature, and Sheridan's 
disj^atch followed, asking permission to deal with the 
Louisianians as banditti, member after member rose, in 
either House, to justify the acts. When the minority, 
alarmed at the rapid strides of unlicensed power, proposed 
to ask of the President what information he had upon the 
subject, they were tauntingly told that the Senate " had 
better not try to make a law to guide the acts of the Pres- 
ident " ; that the President might give the desired infor- 
mation, or he might not, and, if he did not, " what were 
they going to do about it ? " That was the sneering re- 
mark of the Senator from Wisconsin. In those times, 
patience, full debate (when it was allowed), that the pub- 
lic at least might know what was going on, and steady 
record of their votes against obnoxious measures, were 
all that the minority could do, and this duty they faith- 
fully performed, none more faithfully than Mr. Bayard. 
When the admission of Pinchbeck to the Senate was on 
the verge of accomplishment, he remained in his place for 
twenty-eight continuous hours, resisting that monstrous 
disgrace and wrong ; resisting, not only then, but at all 
times, the doctrine that this is something other than a 
government of laws, a government of defined jDOwers, a 
government in which, while majorities rule, minorities are 
])rotcclcd by the shield of the Constitution. 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 175 

Yet, what other than that state of things which pre- 
vailed during President Grant's administration was to be 
expected from the teachings of the radical party ? The 
beginnings of illegality are as the letting-out of water ; 
the Httle breach once made, swiftly becomes a crevasse. 
Granted that the Constitution might be strained a little 
for a special need ; that a little unwarranted power might 
be taken in a case of emergency, and the rest followed as 
a logical consequence. Yet many well-meaning citizens, 
who viewed with abhorrence the carnival of misrule of 
which we have spoken, still thought that they might, 

"To do a great good, do a littlo wrong," 

and strain the limited powers to gain a desirable end. 

It was to such as these that Mr. Bayard addressed 
such warnings as those with which he began his speech 
of February 26, 1874. The abuse of alcoholic drinks is a 
great and most deplorable evil, as all men admit. But 
many worthy men, who have given attention to the sub- 
ject, have grown to think that outside of that there is 
scarcely any evil at all ; and to repress it, or even to ex- 
periment in repressing it, they would consent to a far 
worse abuse — the abuse of unlawful power. And, as 
another set of gentlemen thought that the chief duty of 
Congress was to devote all its thought, its care, its solici- 
I tude, to making the negro contented and happy, so these 
would have had the same body undertake the charge of the 
; hquor-trade. It was on this that Mr. Bayard remarked : 

" One of the troubles of our times is that so many 
very well-meaning and respectable persons consider that 
everything that is right in itself should necessarily be 
performed by the Congress of the United States, forget- 
tinc; that this is a government of limited, enumerated, 



17(*, LII'E OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and delegated jiowers, and that the desirability of a mea- 
sure is no test whatever of the right of Congress to enact 
it into law. I believe, sir, that it is an indifference to this 
truth and it is a disregard of this truth that have led this 
country into most of the difficulties from which we have 
suffered and which still surround us." 

So in his speech on the appropriation bill (February 
20, 1879), when he recalls the noble struggle that the mi- 
nority made for constitutional liberty in 1870 and 1871 : 

" When on the floor of this Chamber there stood with 
me a scanty handful of men, among whom, ever conspic- 
uous, was my honored friend from Ohio [Mr. Thurman], 
that we steadfastly opposed the enactment of the so-called 
enforcement laws, and stood here, by day and by night, 
endeavoring, by strenuous debate, to awaken the Ameri- 
can peoj)le to a sense of the dangers contained in such 
legislation, and to make some attempt, vain though it 
should be, to dissuade the great party majority that en- 
acted these laws, I believed then that those laws were 
arbitrary ; that they violated the spirit of justice which 
laws must contain in order to be useful and respected ; 
that they were violative of those limitations upon federal 
power which the Constitution had imposed. I then en- 
deavored to point out their capability for gross abuse and 
injustice ; and all the dangers that I then apprehended, 
and the injustice and the mischief which such laws would 
necessarily cause, have been more than fulfilled in what 
we have witnessed in the last four years. 

" For what ])urpose and in what name and in what 
cause were these laws enacted ? They were professed to 
be in the interest of peace and purity of elections. Have 
tliey been productive of peace ? Have they been produc- 
tive of purity ? Have the agencies which the administra- 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 177 

tion have employed to carry out these laws been such as 
can, with common honesty, be claimed to be in the inter- 
est of peace, good order, and pnrity in elections ? Have 
they not rather been proven to be agencies for corruption 
and for the grossest intimidation ? I ask, plainly, all ov^er 
this country have these laws been administered in the 
cause of public justice, or have they been administered in 
the cause of one political party ? In all the millions of 
money that have been appropriated and spent, has one 
dollar, one farthing of that money, ever reached any but 
a partisan's hand ? Has any man, but the members of one 
of the great political parties, ever felt the adverse power 
of this legislation ? Has any man but a member of one 
political party felt his dishonest or improper action re- 
strained by this legislation ? Can the records of any 
federal court show any indictment found or prosecuted 
against any but the members of one of the political parties 
of this Union ? Can any senator suggest the record of a 
single case in which this unjust and partisan discrimina- 
tion has failed to be made ? 

" I said I intended to w\alk in the path of law and the 
spirit of law, and to find, under law, remedies for all in- 
justice, for, in my belief, one danger of our time is the 
confusion in the public mind and in the minds of honest 
men of the spirit and meaning of the laws which should 
protect our liberty. Sir, there can be nothing more insi- 
diously dangerous than to accomplish injustice under the 
pretended forms of justice, nothing more dangerous than 
to overthrow law under pretense of enforcing law. Laws 
perverted from their meaning, laws in which the letter is 
followed and the spirit is killed, are the most essential 
frauds upon a free government. By all the decisions of 
the courts, by the decision of every parliamentary body in 



178 I-II'^ ^>l'' TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

a free country, the presence of armed forces at the polls 
of popular elections ipso facto avoids the result of that 
election at the demand of the defeated party. To my 
sorrow as an American be it said, I witnessed the other 
day the array of the united majority of senators on the 
other side of this chamber in favor of the doctrine, that 
in time of profound peace it should be lawful to bring a 
standing army to the peaceful polls of election — not one 
voice of all, not one man in that array of intelligence and 
ability, was found to be willing to raise his voice in favor 
of a principle so plain and essential that I had not believed 
there could be a difference about it among those who in- 
tended to preserve a government of laws." 

And he concludes with words that should sink into 
the heart of every honest American, whatever his party, 
who truly loves and cherishes his country and his liberty, 
nor believes that what our fathers bought so dearly should 
be lightly flung away : " Mr. President, I believe that all 
over this country, outside of those heated partisans who 
make up the rank and the file of the two great parties, 
there stands an authoritative mass of intelligent, indepen- 
dent, upright, liberty-loving American citizens, who will 
never consent that the principle of free election, that great 
safety-valve, that great American substitute for revolu- 
tion, shall be invaded or overthrown, directly or indirect- 
ly. When the ximerican people, having the facts and 
the issue broadly, fairly, and openly presented to them, 
shall say that it is lawful for the executive branch of the 
government to have unlimited power to take possession 
of all the police i)Owers of any State, to place at the polls 
an autliority })aramount to any which the State could 
])]acc there, officials without number, beyond the power 
of arrest, officials paramount to any State authority, and 



"THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 179 

SO go through the form of an election, or allow the people 
to go through it, in the grasp of such a mighty power as 
I have described — I say when the American people shall 
look on and decide in favor of that, then my hope of re- 
publican government in this country will have died within 
me. I do not believe they will ever so decide. I do not 
believe that they are prepared to part with their liberties ; 
I do not believe that, when fairly and honestly and straight- 
forwardly this issue is presented to them, there will be a 
doubtful voice or a doubtful expression of that voice. I 
do not believe that they are prepared to bid farewell to 
this grand system of republican government which has so 
digniiied humanity, which has been so fair and so just, 
so glorious and so noble, which has given the plain poor 
man in this country the status of his manhood, and recog- 
nized the true dignity of humanity ; I do not believe they 
will part with all this at the bidding of any political party 
for the sake of continuing itself in power. And, sir, I 
can only say that, whether it be with the great majority, 
which I think I shall find with me in that issue, or whether 
it be in the feeblest minority that, mindful of the Consti- 
tution of our fathers, mindful of the liberty for which 
they struggled, mindful of the principle of laws under 
which they endeavored to establish this government, I 
shall ever be found steadfast ; for I know that it involves 
the vital spirit of republicanism, without which our sys- 
tem would become a despotism, or sink into anarchy." 

From such principles and such practice as have been 
referred to, there followed, as a natural consequence, a 
habit of considering all restrictions to a proposed line of 
action as vexatious and ofiensive hindrances, to be cleared 
away as expeditiously as possible. True, the time was 
not ripe yet for quite as summary measures everywhere 



IgO I'J™ OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

as liad been used in some of the States. They could not 
put a Bond or a Durell on the Supreme bench of the 
United States, or send a De Trobriand to purge the 
House of Kepnjsentatives at the bayonet's point ; but what 
they could do they did. The Supreme Court of the 
Ignited States had long been consecrated in men's minds 
as the inner line of defense against wrong, as that which 
in our whole fabric of government was most upright, 
most stable, most august. But the Supreme Court stood 
in the w^ay of invasions of the Constitution, and was 
therefore at once the object of attack. They spoke of it 
with scarce concealed scorn, talked openly of " repudiat- 
ing " its decisions, if these threatened their plans, and 
found a still more effective mode of undermining its in- 
fluence and lessening its title to respect. A decision 
against the constitutionality of the legal-tender act stood 
in their way, and must be reversed. How was the revers- 
al accomplished ? Not by changing the opinion, but by 
changing the jpersonnel of the court. The number of 
judges was increased, and a gentleman added to the bench 
who was known to be in favor of the act. This, and the 
opportunity given by the resignation of another judge, 
enabled them to construct such a court as they wanted. 
To say that this only differed in enormity from the of- 
fense of packing a jury would be to use harsh language ; 
but we are unable to frame any form of words to express 
a distinction so refined. But there was still a minority 
in the Supreme Court, as there was a minority in Con- 
gress, and the legislation that would have confounded all 
the departments of the government and swept away every 
safeguard of the Constitution was not permitted to go on 
unchecked. 

Next in importance to the supremacy of law is the 



'•THIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 181 

stcability of law, and on this point, too often overlooked, 
Mr. Bayard has insisted with great force. A great evil 
in this country has been the habit of temporary legisla- 
tion. A law may be just in itself, it may excellently 
answer a temporary purpose, and yet it may be a very 
unwise law, because, that purpose once accomplished, it 
becomes obsolete, and is either a hindrance to justice, 
thus defeating the end of all law, or its breach is con- 
nived at, thus bringing law into contempt. Of course, 
the imperfections and the changing conditions of human 
society necessitate changes in legislation ; but what Mr. 
Bayard has urged has been that legislation should be 
made as stable as possible, and that permanence should 
always be an end kept in view. Some of his remarks on 
this subject have already been cited, and he adverts to it 
in his speech on the bill " to strengthen public credit " : 

" I think that it will destroy, in a great measure, that 
certainty which it should be the object of all legislators 
as well as judges to reach. . . . Peace and certainty 
ought to be the ends of litigation as well as legislation." 

So in his speech of December 19, 1873, the proposed 
repeal of the bankrupt law being under consideration : 

" The trouble of our legislation is its want of stability. 
It is this continual yielding to an ignorant and popular 
demand for change when the necessity for change does 
not exist. Our people do not let their laws stand long 
enough to understand their general result, their ultimate 
effect. A law can not be judged by single cases of its 
influence and operation ; it must be judged as to its gen- 
eral policy after years of experience." 

But Mr. Bayard is not one of those who imagine that 
in legislation alone is a panacea for all human evils, and 
think that men are to be made good and happy by a stat- 



I 



1S2 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

iite framed to meet every case where they are bad or un- 
hajipy. lie has always insisted upon the great principle 
of the "unwritten law" — not "a higher law" which 
releases men from legal obligation when it becomes in- 
convenient ; but rather a lower law, a law which is the 
foundation of all legislation that is at once both just and 
wise. Of this he has given his views so forcibly in his 
address at Cambridge, June 26, 1877, that we can not do 
better than to transcribe a part of his remarks : 

" It is the most difficult of all problems m the science 
of government to determine when and where and how it 
is wise to interfere by the authority of law with the mo- 
tives which are usually called the natural motives of men 
— as it is evident that the force of laws and their value 
depend almost entirely upon the assent or the consent with 
which those to whom they are addressed shall meet them. 

"The law can not prescribe the performance of the 
virtues ; but it is addressed to the reason, and seeks to 
influence human action by and through the will, by 
presenting an alternative to each prohibited act. More 
than thus appealing to the reason and presenting an alter- 
native the law can not do ! 

" It is this consciousness of the limited power of the 
law which should instruct us that it must be addressed to 
reason, and command the assent of all reasonable minds ; 
otherwise, interminable discontent and confusion must 
ensue. 

" Having tbus stated the impossibility of commanding 
a course of human action by the instrumentality of writ- 
ten laws, let me now remind you how infinitely wider is 
tlie sphere, and more permeating and constant the influ- 
ence, of the UNWRITTEN LAW; by wdiich I do not mean 
hx non acrijita, the common law of custom, acquiescence, 



"TUIS IS A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS." 183 

and judicial decisions, but the great moral law ' written,' 
as Coke said, ' with the finger of God on the heart of 
man.' ' The law of laws, truly and properly to all man- 
kind fundamental, the beginning and the end of all gov- 
ernment,' as Milton called it. 

" Whatever influence written laws obtain, they gather 
from the secret forces of nature which have been consid- 
ered in their framing ; and the failure of so many laws 
passed in disregard of natural laws should instruct us in 
this great truth, 

" Persecutions for opinion's sake have always increased 
heresy ; protection-laws have injured trade ; poor-laws 
have increased poverty, and usury laws have raised the 
rate of interest. This is common experience. I am sen- 
sible of the difficulty of providing a definition for the un- 
written law, which can not be reduced to formulation or 
codification. Human government can never be subjected 
to geometrical exactness, and can only be measured by 
approximations. Form and method will do only for things 
of form and method. 

" There is, after all, a unanimity of the entire human 
race in the great rules of duty and the fundamental prin- 
ciples of morals ; the general sympathies of mankind flow 
together and a general judgment is arrived at. There are 
certain principles to which all nations do homage, and the 
majesty and authority of virtue are derived from this 
common consent." 

" We need the force of an unwritten law to establish 
in the hearts and minds of the American people a sense 
of the dignity and the impartiality of the government of 
the Union ; a general and habitual reverence for its jus- 
tice, and a spirit of proud obedience to its laws, not mere 
slavish and sullen submission to its power. 



Ig4. LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

" To aid in the establishment of such a sentiment we 
need the recognition of the equality of the States in our 
constitutional scheme, a public opinion that shall discour- 
age and prevent assaults upon the credit or good repute 
of any portion of the Union, and a popular resentment 
that shall visit any man or body of men exhibiting hostil- 
ity and malevolence toward his fellow countrymen. 

" In other words, we need an invigorated and realizing 
sense of the value of the Union to the happiness, security, 
and honor of all its members, so that, perceiving their 
freedom, they will use it to strengthen the government 
whose institutions are the source of their freedom, that 
they may realize the truth of the exclamation of Charles 
James Fox, 

'Liberty is order, Liberty is strength; ' 

that laws of repression may be regarded with distrust in 
the knowledge that public virtue owes more to freedom 
than to jealousy and restraint." 



CHAPTER X. 

DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 

The war was fonglit for the Union. Whatever may 
have been the hopes or desires of some of the leaders, the 
people of the North contended for the Union alone. Ko 
other motive would have brought them to bear patiently 
the burdens of such a strife, and to pour out their blood 
on a hundred fields of battle, but that devotion to the 
Union which was intensified by the fear of its destruction 
until love almost became idolatry. And, when they con- 
quered at last, they had a right to the prize they had so 
dearly won. Not merely justice and consistency, but 
good policy pointed to the same course. The war had 
swept a great part of the land with devastation, had 
wasted the population, paralysed many industries, made 
bankrupt eleven States, and loaded the rest with debt. 
The only road to renewed prosperity, north and south, 
lay in healing the wounds of the past ; in such a course 
of action as would encourage industry, protect thrift, re- 
store confidence, and bring back peace over all the land. 

The South, beaten on the field of battle, had accepted 
in good faith the result of that arbitrament, and was 
ready to lay new foundations for a new future. All had 
to be organized anew. Capital was gone, credit almost 
gone, the labor of years and of generations swept away, 
and scarce anything left but the soil and the climate. 



ISO LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

Their whole sjstem of labor was broken up, and the pop- 
ulation of agricultural laborers, deceived by wild reports 
and false hopes held out to them by designing persons, 
could not be reorganized. Waiting the time when the 
lands of their former masters should be divided among: 
them, they flocked to the towns, and there huddled in 
squalid misery and vice, expectant of the day when an 
act of Congress or a Presidential proclamation, such as 
had declared the abolition of slavery,, should declare the 
abolition of the curse of Adam. 

Sorely tried, but not despairing, the people set to 
work to rebuild their fallen fortunes under new condi- 
tions. Great estates, no longer manageable, were di- 
vided ; a system of small farming introduced ; capitalists 
from the North and from abroad, seeing the opportunity, 
began to invest their money in mines, in mills, in fac- 
tories, in railroads, and thus to give employment to indus- 
try, and develop, as they never had been developed, the 
resources of the country. For the South, devoted too 
exclusively to the production of a few great staples, had 
scarcely touched the treasure of natural wealth with 
which Providence had so bountifully enriched her. Her 
mines, of unsurpassed richness, had never been explored. 
Tier raw materials were sent a thousand miles to be 
worked up, and manufactured articles, which might have 
been made at home, brought at heavy cost from distant 
lands. Many of her richest valleys, untapped by rail- 
roads or canals, had been almost smothered in the super- 
fluity of abundance for which there was no outlet. With 
all tlic drawbacks we have before mentioned, there is no 
doubt that prosperity would have returned with magical 
(piiekness, had things been allowed to take their natural 
course. 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 187 

But this prosperity, in which every American had an 
interest, was only to be had through the renewal of har- 
mony between the States, the reign of peace, order, and 
law, and the restoration of the Southern States to their 
equal place in the constitutional Union. Every disad- 
vantage, every disability laid upon those States were so 
many obstacles to this. And we believe that the senti- 
ment of the whole country, so soon as the excitement left 
by the war had given place to calm reflection, was strong- 
ly in favor of this wise and liberal policy. 

But this would by no means have suited the purposes 
of the radical leaders. A restored Union was the very 
last thing they wanted. As their party had owed its ex- 
istence to agitation and sectional hate, so in peace and 
concord they foresaw its certain death. Destructive in 
its principles and in its origin, it had no policy to justify 
its continuance for an hour in a land of peace, order, and 
equal laws. 

For parties, as for individuals, self-preservation is the 
first law of nature. To perpetuate the radical party, the 
" old war feeling " must be revived. The Union must not 
be restored, it must be " reconstructed." And the mea- 
sures which they devised for this reconstruction were 
such as deprived all those who had a real interest in the 
prosperity of the South of any share or influence in the 
government, and placed all oflice and power in the hands 
of negroes, renegades, or unscrupulous adventurers. They 
did not expect the Southern people to bear these things 
patiently : they expected and hoped for resistance ; and 
every expression of impatience, every struggle to be rid 
of this crushing oppression and this plague of unclean 
and venomous parasites, was seized upon as a pretext for 
declamation about " renewing tlie rebellion," " traitorous 
9 



Igg LIFE OP THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

conspiracies," etc., Avitli the inference that only by con- 
tinuing the radicals in power could the flames of civil 
Mar be kept from bursting out again. The whites must 
])e disarmed, lest they should massacre the negroes ; the 
negroes must be armed and organized to protect them- 
selves against the whites. The "carpet-bag" govern- 
ments, with their grotesque legislatures, plundered and 
helped to plunder the States, and, not content with steal- 
ing all that there was to steal, by means of fraudulent 
issues of bonds thrust their rapacious claws into the 
pockets of unborn generations. At all this carnival of 
misrule and wrong, the radical leaders rejoiced, because 
the indignant protests, the inevitable disquiet, could all 
be turned to profitable account. 

Almost the earliest utterance of Mr. Bayard in the 
Senate was in opposition to these so-called reconstruction 
acts, on Ajjril 9, 1869. In it he thus points out the 
cliaracter and tendencies of this legislation : 

" I do not propose to discuss the condition of the peo- 
ple of these three Southern States so called. I could not 
trust myself to do it, and run through the dreary, 
wretched catalogue of wrongs to which they have been 
subjected. It was truly said by the Senator from Oregon 
[Mr. Williams], in reply to a remark of the Senator from 
New York [Mr. Conkling], that it was too late upon this 
floor to talk of good faith to the people of the Southern 
States. Alas ! sir, that is too true ; for it would be idle 
to talk of keeping faith when the lips that profess it have 
violated it so often toward them. 

"What are these communities against which your 
legislation has been leveled ? They are States when you 
can use them for a party end. You remand them to the 
coiulition of conquered provinces when you think they 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. ISO 

may slip from your grasp and the sentiment of tlieir 
people stands in defiance to the wishes of your party. 

" I do not propose to speak of the effect of this law 
(if it be worthy of that name) upon the three communi- 
ties to which it is addressed. Remembering the claims 
that are made for the progress of mankind, the beneficent 
influences of Christianity, the peculiar claims for moral 
and intellectual leadership so exclusively urged by gentle- 
men representing the dominant majority on the floor of 
this Senate, one might expect an enunciation of a policy 
founded upon some recognition of the true qualities 
which go to make a State. But no, sir. Instead of that, 
we have from the lips of this party of progress no an- 
nouncement of a broad, or of a high, or of a Christian 
character ; but there comes the same old stern pagan dec- 
laration, Vce metis ! The history of legislation for the 
last four years in this country has proven that woe indeed 
is the portion of the conquered. 

" But, sir, I rose to speak more of the effect of this 
amendment upon the other States, against whom no pretext 
raised by a condition of war and revolution can be urged. 
I speak for the State which I have the honor in part to 
represent on this floor, and I here declare that your pro- 
posed submission of the fifteenth amendment to the un- 
trammeled vote of the different States is turned to dust 
and ashes when you yourselves create the votes that shall 
overcome the natural majority against you. Congress, by 
its own terms, usurps the power to cast the votes of three 
States in the interests of a partisan majority ; and that 
you call a ratification under the Constitution of an amend- 
ment to the fundamental law. . . . 

" If I know aught of the government under which we 
live, it is the elective franchise, it is the process of carrying 



190 I^IFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

on govornincnt by the elective system, tluit marks it from 
its first organization to its last act. It is a power that 
must be, in the very nature of things, the controlling 
power, because the election is your test of power,- of law 
in every shape and at every stage of your country's gov- 
ernment. That power yon propose to take from the 
States and deposit with the federal government ; to con- 
solidate the power of all powers, that which nnderlies and 
creates all powers ; and that you propose to place in the 
hands of Congress. There never was a graver question, 
there never Avas an act which will affect the whole struc- 
ture and ircnius of our government to the extent that this 
must, should it succeed in obtaining the consent of the 
people of this country. 

" It has been demonstrated before this Senate in a 
manner that could not be and has not been replied to, by 
my honorable friend, the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Thur- 
man], that by the amendment of the honorable Senator 
from Indiana [Mr. Morton] you do coerce the choice, not 
only of the Southern States, which is a barefaced act of 
simple power, but you coerce the sentiment of every North- 
ern State under your pretended power of governing the 
Southern States. Talk of the free choice of Indiana, or 
Ohio, or New York ! What is it when a Congress can by 
law insist that the votes of certain States shall be cast in 
opposition to it 'i All freedom is gone. Sir, when Con- 
gress adopts such a measure as this, it is doing nothing less 
than playing with cogged dice. It is the intention there- 
fore, by a measure like tliis, to destroy, first, all shadow of 
freedom in the exercise of their opinions by the people 
of these three States, and next, having destroyed that, to 
make their votes the instrument whereby you crush out 
tlie sentiment of the Northern States. Per fas aut nefas 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 191 

seems to me to be the rule by which this amendment is 
to be forced upon the American peoj^le ; and the great 
question will yet come up — it can not be long .kept down 
— how any law, how any amendment obtained by means 
like this, can be held binding upon the conscience of a 
peoj^le who have either the sense or the m'anhood to re- 
main free. 

" It is, therefore, that I object to the whole of this 
measure, and I rise here in my place to protest against its 
passage. While affecting to direct it against those un- 
happy people whom the fortunes of war have placed in 
your hands, you use the power so lawlessly held, so ruth- 
lessly exercised, to strike down freedom of choice in the 
very States which you profess to treat as equals, and en- 
titled equally with yourselves in having a voice in saying 
how the government shall be conducted. 

" And even when this is done, when these States rati- 
fy this amendment, giving your party the advantage of 
having throe votes of those States, then what conies ? Is 
the end yet to these people ? Are they, even then, States 
entitled to representation ? I^ot so, sir, for I understand 
another amendment has been presented and adopted, that 
again they must present themselves before their cai3tors, 
again pass beneath their bow and spear, to learn what 
new terms may yet be exacted before they shall be admit- 
ted to representation in the two Houses of Congress. I 
do not suppose that any opposition of mine, or of those 
with whom I act in this body, can have any effect upon 
this vote ; but justice to myself, and justice to my State, 
urged me to say what I have said, and I believe it to be 
true in respect to this measure now before the Senate, 
which I aver to be a most dishonest act of legislation." * 
* The bill passed the same day : yeas, 44 ; nays, 9. 



192 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

In Peccmber of the same year a bill was before the 
Senate " to perfect the reconstruction of Georgia." Geor- 
gia had already ratified the fourteenth amendment ; but 
tlie Legislature had decided that negroes, though entitled 
to vote, were not eligible as members of its body. Sena- 
tor Morton, tlierefore, offered an amendment to the effect 
that the legislature should be provisional only, until it 
had ratified the fifteenth amendment also, and members 
of Congress from Georgia had been admitted to their 
seats. Mr. Bayard, in reply, argued that the principle 
that Congress may usurp the powers of State legisla- 
tures is as flagrant a wrong and outrage to the North- 
ern as to the Southern people; and that, in view of 
the continual aggressions of the federal power, they were 
creating a most dangerous precedent. He then pro- 
ceeds : 

" This whole question of suffrage, whether for negroes 
or for whites, or for white men or women, is, after all, the 
great question of our time in this country. It is the 
question that underlies all others. We have an elective 
government proceeding upon that principle and doctrine 
from its first to its last act ; and that power is now sought 
by the fifteenth amendment to be consolidated into the 
hands of Congress, that the actual government shall ob- 
tain the control of the qualification of voters in all the 
various States. I regard it as most unhappy ; I regard it 
as the most revolutionary measure in its effect that has 
ever yet been presented for passage to the Congress of 
the United States, or to the people of the States. If it 
were an ordinary amendment, my objection to the method 
by which its adoption is sought to be obtained w^ould 
!i])j>ly ; but it is an extraordinary amendment — one that 
will change, in my opinion, the very character of our gov- 



t 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. . 193 

eminent. I say that it is monstrous that tlie people of the 
various States should not have the fullest and freest ex- 
pression of their will on the subject. And yet, look at 
what in substance has been done and what is proposed to 
be done. It is to turn the question of choice into a mere 
farce. It is ' your money or your life ! ' to the Southern 
States, and the Northern States are to be made the victims 
of the weakness and inability of the Southern States to 
maintain themselves and their constitutional rights on this 
subject. 

" Mr. President, I feel most deeply my inability, my 
want of preparation in the present case, to say what I 
should like to have the opportunity of saying in opposi- 
tion to this bill. It is not that I believe that anything 
that may come from the feeble minority in this body, 
and I its feeblest member, could have any effect in stay- 
ing legislation which has been decreed as a party neces- 
sity. I would most sincerely desire to have every act of 
mine and every vote of mine tested by the limitations of 
the federal Constitution. I would have no questionable 
measure passed, whether it stood for or against the acci- 
dent of the horn- with which my political affiliations were 
connected. It is with that reason and following that idea 
that I have occupied the attention of the Senate for the 
time I have on this subject. 

" It is because I believe that this act is an unfair and 
an unjust act to the people of the community against 
which it is directed ; it is remanding them back to mili- 
tary power only ; it is adding conditions which at that 
time you had not considered or invented or prescribed 
for them. Unjust and unwarrantable as is this bill to- 
ward them, it tells with equal injustice against the people 
of other States, whose will is that this constitutional 



104 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

amendment should not be adopted. Therefore it is that 
I object to the passage of the bill." 

The oppressed States were anxious for representation 
in Congress, where, at least, thej might hope for some 
redress if their voices could be heard. The problem then 
was how to limit and control this representation in such 
ways as to exclude, if possible, every man who really rep- 
resented the people and the interests of the State. The 
language of the Constitution providing for all the subject 
of representation was j)lain beyond the possibility of mis- 
understanding ; but the Constitution had long ceased to 
be an obstacle in the way of the party in power. In Feb- 
ruary, 1870, Mississippi being then an applicant for rep- 
resentation, the radical members of both houses, of whom 
Senator Morton was the acknowledged leader, took the 
ground that, under that section of the Constitution which 
guaranteed to every State " a republican form of govern- 
ment," a majority in Congress was entitled to define re- 
pubHcan government at their pleasure, and thus to have 
it in their power to remodel or exclude a State at their 
will. 

To this strange assumption of power Mr. Bayard re- 
plied in his speech of February 15. After reviewing the 
course and the arguments of the opposite side, he proceeds : 

" The meaning of the words in a written cliarter 
of government is all-important. It includes everything. 
Give a man power to use words in what meaning he 
l^leascs, and you destroy any government and any limi- 
tation tliat Avas ever devised. First, the senator would 
(construe the word ' guarantee,' and he would claim that 
to be an unlimited grant of power to create and mold 
(•riginahy the institutions of a State, not a power to 
fulfill the stipulations of a third party in case of his de- 



i 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. . 195 

fault, which is what I understand a guarantee to mean. 
It is a word plainly intended to be used in its natural and 
restricted sense, but by the senator's advance and his 
progress of definition is made pregnant with capacities 
and powers never dreamed of by those who placed it 
where it stands in the Constitution. Constructions of the 
Constitution have been strict and liberal, the latter under 
the doctrine of the implication of powers ; but here is 
proposed something new and far more dangerous — a 
power to use words in any sense confessedly not intend- 
ed by those who placed them in the written charter of 
government, in which, and in which alone. Congress 
finds the enumeration of its just powers." 
' After enumerating the various arbitrary conditions 
imposed by the bill, and showing that, so far from " guar- 
anteeing a republican fonn of government," they would 
make such a government absolutely impossible, he con- 
tinues : 

"But, Mr. President, after all, the conditions con- 
tained in this bill, these shackles sought to be riveted 
upon the necks and limbs of the people of Virginia and 
of Mississippi, are but incidents to the whole system pur- 
sued by Congress, and called 'reconstruction.' It has 
often seemed to me only foolish to be straining at these 
legislative gnats when camels had gone down the throat 
of Congress with such apparent ease and frequency. 
After all, sir, what bald humbugs and wretched shams 
are joiw reconstructed governments and your ' resusci- 
tated States,' as they have been termed in the course of 
this debate ! What honest riian but must laugh in scorn 
at these specimens of radical manufacture, set up here 
as republican States ! They are the creations of violence 
and revolution, based upon the denial of every underly- 



^r,(; LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD, 

ing; principle of our original government. Thej are the 
products of ruthless military rule, of fraud and force com- 
bined. The intelligence and wealth and moral worth of 
all these communities are ntterly proscribed, and igno- 
rance and profligacy exalted to high places of power." 

And he closes his remarks : 

" The Southern States were overthrown in their stmg- ' 
gle for a separate national existence. Heroes of the 
South gave up their swords to heroes of the Korth, who 
received their paroles of honor, which have ever since 
been kept inviolate. Ghastly and dreadful as were the 
wounds inflicted in that terrible struggle, yet, at its close, 
there stood the great vis medicatrix naturae ready and able 
to draw together the ragged edges, bind up the lacerated 
parts, and let them heal by ' the first intention.' Time, 
too, who lessens every human grief, would have covered 
with his wings mnch of the natural bitterness engendered 
in such a strife, and steeped it in oblivion. If a wise and 
generous policy had in 1865 been proposed and followed 
by Congress toward those who so lately had confronted 
them in arms, but who had so fully and wholly surren- 
dered the argument of force, and had freely given the 
most unmistakable evidence and pledges of their willing- 
ness to accept the situation, and conform their former 
pretensions to the logical demands of events, how easy 
and how certain would have been the restoration of that 
Union so dear to the American heart ? 

"But, senators of the radical party, you prevented 
this 'consummation so devoutly to be wished,' and did it 
for party ends. The South was down, and when she was 
d(jwn you struck her. Your blows were foul bloAvs, and 
were not given in a fair fight. All Christendom cried 
shame upon you as you inflicted them. You have un- 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 197 

necessarily and wickedly added humiliation to the cup of 
sorrow the Southern people have been compelled to drink, 
and drink so deeply. A brave and generous people by 
the fortunes of war were subjected to your rule. Their 
hands were stretched out to you and were rejected ; their 
honest pride ingeniously and cruelly wounded ; and you 
have lost that conlidence and friendshij) which, for the 
sake of your country, you should have cultivated and 
valued. 

" By your course of action the people of the other sec- 
tions of the Union have been deprived of their natural 
allies and auxiliaries in bearing their vast burdens of na- 
tional debt and taxation, and the advancement of our 
country's prosperity has been greatly retarded. You 
have placed and kept the people of the South in loath- 
some subjection to the most debased and worthless classes 
of their inhabitants, at the cost not only of justice, de- 
cency, and good government, but also at an enormous pecu- 
niary expense to the Northern and Western people. And, 
in order to accomplish all this, it was necessary that you 
should disregard and violate nearly every limitation im- 
posed upon your power by the federal Constitution, and 
postpone almost indefinitely the time when the States of 
the South shall be a source of strength, happiness, and 
pride to those of the other sections of the Union. Will 
you be sustained in all this by your people ? It is a grave 
question, which for the sake of the Union of our fathers 
I trust may soon be answered in the negative." 

For years the radicals had unlimited sway in the 
Southern States. All the apparatus of fraud and engines 
of violence stood at their disposal ; all the machinery of 
government was in their hands, from Judge Bond on the 
bench, to Sambo, J. P., at the cross-roads ; from Holden 



193 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

Bweeping into the capacious jjockets of his friends the 
whole wealth of a State, to the sable legislators at Colum- 
hia fighting for ginger-cakes on the floor of the house. 
The men to plan, the men to justify, the men to execute, 
were all theirs. Had they desired peace and order they 
could have had it, but they desired discord and confusion. 

One device after another was tried to blind the peo- 
ple of the North to their proceedings, and to explain why 
that pathetic sus])iration of President Grant, " let us have 
peace," was so hard to realize. The Ku-Klux phantom 
stood them in good stead for a while, and gave many 
fine opportunities for laying hands upon hearts and ap- 
pealing to Heaven. They had collected a body of wit- 
nesses of unsurpassable efficiency ; visiting committees 
saw M'hatever they went to see ; until the tragi-comedy 
culminated in broad farce as honorable members with un- 
equaled power of face stood with upturned eyes beside 
the couch of Eliza Pinkston. 

Grotesque as all this was, it was a matter of terrible 
moment that men should hold their liberties and lives 
and whole States their franchises at the mercy of such 
informers, and those who professed to believe them. 
Mr. Bayard exposed the whole business, with all its mon- 
strous wrong, in. his speech of March 20, 1871. Mr. 
Sherman had introduced into the Senate the following 
resolution : 

" liciolrcd, That as organized banda of desperate and lawless men, 
mainly composed of soldiers of the late rebel armies, armed, dis- 
ciplined, and disguised, and bound by oaths and secret obligations, 
have, by force, terror, and violence, subverted all civil authority in 
larfjje parts of the late insurrectionary States, thus utterly overthrow- 
iuf: the safety of person and property, and all those rights which 
lire the jiririiary basis and object of all civil government, and which 
are expressly guarautoed by the Constitution of the United States 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 199 

to all its citizens ; and, as the courts are rendered utterly powerless, 
by organized perjury, to punish crime, therefore the Judiciary Com- 
mittee is instructed to report a bill or bills tliat will enable the 
President and the courts of the United States to execute the laws, 
punish such organized violence, and secure to all citizens the rights 
so guaranteed to them." 

Mr. Bayard first protested against tlie iniquity of 
drawing a bill of indictment against eleven States upon 
the strength of evidence collected in one State alone. He 
showed how so called confessions were extorted by tor- 
ture and threats of immediate death ; how most of the 
" outrages " had no political significance, but were merely 
the struggles of society for self-preservation, in a region 
where ruffianism was armed and encouraged, where mur- 
der, arson, and rape were things of almost daily occur- 
rence, under the beneficent sway of a H olden, who, as 
was testified, pardoned the offenders before they were in- 
side the penitentiary gate. In such a state of society it 
would have been a marvel indeed if outrages, aggressive 
or vindictive, had not occurred; and to this pass had 
Radical rule brought ]^orth Carolina. And these were 
the things that were offered as a pretext for laying 
the franchises of all the States in the Union under 
the feet of a majority in Congress. The speech con- 
cludes : 

" I appeal to the Senate to rise above mere party views 
in this case, and remember that we are all Americans, 
living under this government, and all, I hope, equally 
attached to our country. The Constitution, which we 
have involved, was meant for minorities. The shifting 
sands of political life may put your party at no late day 
in a minority, and then, when you appeal to a majority 
in these halls for every protection which that Constitution 



200 I'll"'!'' OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

entitles you to ask, I and those with whom I act in this 
body will freely aid you with our votes. The Constitu- 
tion of our country to-day is imperiled by the demands of 
party. It never was more directly assailed than by the 
resolution offered by the Senator from Ohio. He pro- 
poses to enter the States, and deprive them of all those 
pohce powers unquestionably necessary for their preserva- 
tion, and to grasp all into the hands of the federal gov- 
ernment. The proposed coercive measures, if made for 
Carolina, must extend to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New 
York, to Ohio, for we can not have laws unequal in their 
operation, and applying only to portions of this country. 
As I hope and believe, political power is about to pass 
from the party who ha.ve held it for the past ten years in 
this country. I ask, at least, that you shall restore us the 
Constitution, sorely shattered as it has been by your ten 
years of administration, without further assaults upon it. 
There yet remains enough, by an honest subordination to 
its limitations, to guide us back to a condition of limited 
government, which the excesses and excitements of the 
war have in a degree weakened or destroyed. I trust that 
this measure of violence will not meet the assent of the 
Senate, and that those who are now in the majority will 
see the danger of violating the great princiiDles of govern- 
ment in the hope of obtaining temporary partisan ad- 
vantnge." 

When in May, 1 872, a bill was offered, the effect of 
which was to give the President absolute and despotic 
power in every State, authorizing him to suspend the 
wi-it of habeas corpus at his discretion, Mr. Bayard's voice 
rose clear and strong in defense of the Constitution and 
the rights and liberties of citizens. He sifted the whole 
ma.ss of alleged facts which had been off'ered in defense 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. > 201 

of a measure so perilous and revolutionary, showed how 
false and frivolous were the charges, and what were the 
characters of the informers and accusers. One of the 
advocates of the bill had even taunted the Southern peo- 
ple for weeping at the graves of those who fell in the 
Avar. Mr. Bayard replied to this unmanly scoff : 

" Yes, Mr. President, and, should it ever come to pass 
that the graves of the Southern dead should be neglected 
by their kindred, kind Nature herself will take their 
place, and the Southern earth in which the dead sleep will 
yield its lilies and its daisies to wreath their places of 
rest, and the soft winds of the South will gently wave 
the grass above them, and the dews of her starry nights 
will keep grass and flower fresh in memory of her brave 
children who died in defense of the soil which now con- 
tains them. 

" Why, sir, can it be that a mind can be so darkened 
by prejudice and party spirit as to forget the very echoes 
of human nature itself ? If these people did not weep 
over their loved and their lost, they would be something 
more or less than human ; much more likely less than 
more. Such a speech and such sentiments sound to me 
like the report of some Eussian commander writing from 
Warsaw to the Czar, followed by an order forbidding the 
women of Poland to wear mourning for their dead. Is 
it the feeling or the language of an American senator 
directed toward those who are his fellow citizens, and 
who it is the hope of the country will be a source of hap- 
piness and strength to our Union ? Certainly men can 
not be won back from error by such sentiments as these, 
and by such condemnation. They never can be made 
friends by such processes. . . . 

" The law now proposed is an act of assault ; it 



202 LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

breathes of violence. It works upon no emotions but 
those of fear. It will cause hatreds. It will produce no 
good-will either between citizens or toward the govern- 
ment. It is, as I have tried to show, a plain violation of 
the limits of our written charter of power, and, even if it 
were not so, it is unwise and unjust. Cease, then, I beg 
of you, this maleficent, odious system, so foreign to the 
genius of American government, called ' reconstruction,' 
and adopt now and from this time forth the true, the 
wise, the Christian policy of ' reconciliation ' between 
the States of this Union." 

In his strong, though temperate, arraignment of Presi- 
dent Grant's policy in his address at Wilmington [October 
4, 1872], he makes a noble appeal to the justice, the hu- 
manity, and the patriotism of the people : 

" General Grant, with all his power, with the great op- 
portunity before him of pacification, has never said one 
friendly word to the Southern people. There is not, in his 
messages or in any public paper of his, one kindly, friendly 
word of encouragement to them, and, as I have said 
before, not one word of rebuke to those who have acted 
dishonestly and wrongfully among them. If the rascals 
have been caught, he has pardoned them. He has never 
rebuked them. He has never sought to have them pun- 
ished. When the question came up of abolishing the test 
oath, which was excluding men from ofiice in the South, 
although he returned the bill to Congress with his ap- 
proval, he did so with a sneer and an innuendo against the 
truthfulness of the Southern people who had been excluded 
by the oath. Oh, if he had known anything of civil 
government, if he had known anything of human nature, 
he would have known that test oaths are useless as to the 
dishonest, and only tend to exclude the good and true. 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 203 

"He came into office with a cry upon iiis lips, tliat 
turned out to be a mere catch-word, which did catch for 
him thousands, nay, tens of tliousands of votes which he 
will never again receive in this country. When he said, 
' Let us have peace,' the people thought he meant it ; but 
it seems that he either used the words without mean- 
ing, or he has changed his mind most sadly since. Now, 
discontent, disturbance, unkindness, enmity, are the 
weapons he seems most to rely upon for his re-election, 
and he sends his agents off through the country, not 
to say ' Let us have peace,' but to do what his friend 
Morton, of Indiana, does, stir anew the old feeling of 
the war. 

" When you look at his work in South Carolina, -svhen 
you read of the depopulation of those counties, when 
you read of the reign of terror and the sadness which 
brood over them, you are reminded of the line of Taci- 
tus who, in speaking of the conquests of the Barbarians, 
says, ' They make a solitude, and call it peace.' That is the 
kind of peace that General Grant's policy has produced 
in the State of South Carolina and wherever else it has 
been exerted. 

" There is a large portion of this audience and a large 
portion of this community composed of the young men 
of the country. They are at that period of life wdien the 
generous and kindly emotions have most force. Men 
who are older are more apt to be seared by passion, to be 
actuated by prejudice, and to have their better feelings 
almost too much under control. To the young men of 
this audience, to the young men of this country, I would 
appeal to see that kind feeling become their rule of action 
toward their fellow citizens in all portions of this country. 
The duties of hfe are now upon them, and the govern- 



204 I'J™ ^I*' THOMAS r. BAYARD. 

ment of this countiy must, in tlie course of nature, in a 
short time pass into their hands. 

" If but that feeling can be aroused in their ingenuous 
breasts, if tlieir feelings of generosity can but be properly 
touched on this subject, then all will be well. They have 
power to-day with their votes. They will have all power 
and control after a few more years have rolled by. To 
them I address myself, to their emotions of generosity, of 
kindness, and remind them of the necessity of these quali- 
ties in human government. 

" I ask you, younger men of the country, untouched 
by the bitter exj^eriences of life, and by its fiercer pas- 
sions, to insist that good feeling and union and reconcilia- 
tion shall be the law of this land between citizens of all 
parts. See to it that you vote for no man who does not 
so act as to produce them, but vote now and at all times 
hereafter in favor of those men wbo will endeavor again 
to create a union of feeling that shall indeed make our 
Union strong and great and per2:»etual. 

" Let your cry be in regard to law, 'Down with the 
system of coercion. We do not trust lip-service. Up 
with the spirit of trust ; up witli the spirit of confidence 
in our fellow man!' Insist that you will govern him 
through his better feelings, and not by his fears. Unless 
this course be adopted there will be no safety. 

" I tell you, my friends, the same qualities that affect 
a family, the same qualities that affect two friends, affect 
a nation. Why is it that when you pass to the household 
of your friend, and sit in his family circle, and look into 
his eyes and the eyes of his family, you feel yourself safe 
and happy? It is the feeling of human affection that 
makes you safe and happy, and just as you sit down in 
friendship either at your own firesides or those of your 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 205 

friends, so the same spirit will gradually extend through 
a nation. It begins in the little rivulet of individual 
good feeling and friendship, and it swells into the mighty 
river of national amity. 

" Last fall it was my duty to go into the Southern States 
upon another committee of investigation, so called. The 
object of that committee was a plain one. It had been 
created for the purpose of getting evidence of discontent 
and disorder, to be brandished before the eyes of the 
Northern people, and make them approve and accept of 
further measures of coercion against the South. Strange 
to say, the Southern white people who had been treated 
with so much ignominy and unkindness, who had been 
so disregarded by the administration, did not like then* 
well enough to vote for them. It seemed, in the opinion 
of the administration, to be a remarkable fact that men 
did not like those who had used them ill, and did like 
those who had expressed a desire to serve them. General 
Grant had it in his power to gain either the good- will or 
the opposition of the Southern white people. He chose 
to gain their opposition. He chose it by natural methods. 
The tree he planted has borne its fruits. General Grant 
and his party affected surprise at it, and sought some pre- 
text for violence and force against the Southern people, 
in order to comj^el them to come into his j^arty. There- 
fore, a committee was sent down to see M^hat could be 
picked up of a hostile and unfavorable character to the 
people of the Southern States, and report it to the peo- 
ple of the North. What they found did not very well 
suit their purposes, for, although it is published, it is in 
such bulk that no man in ordinary times could read it, 
and the number of copies is so restricted as not to admit 
of general circulation. 



206 I^II'^E OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

" But as I -say, on this committee I was jjlaced and 
served. We went tlirough the Southern States, and heard 
all that malicious ingenuity could invent against the 
white people of that section. 

"As we came up the Potomac River, having passed 
through Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, to Virginia, 
and were nearing the city of Washington, I was sitting 
upon the deck of the steamer, thinking over the intent 
of this investigation, and the result which was to be 
reached by it, when I w^as aroused from my meditation. 
by the tolling of the steamer's bell. I found that we 
were just opposite Mount Yernon, and that it was the 
custom of every boat upon that river, by day or by night, 
to pay the passing tribute of respect to the memory of 
him who was ' first in war, first in peace,' and still re- 
mains, if the truth be told, ' first in the hearts of his 
countrymen.' 

" And how earnestly do I wish the bells tolled in 
memory of the illustrious dead, \^'ho sleeps so calmly by 
the side of the broad Potomac, could wake an echo now 
in the breast of every American citizen ! 

'' Will you not recall the impressive words of his fare- 
well address, and let his voice, now from the grave, ' warn 
you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects 
of the spirit of party generally ' ? 

" The paramount and plain issue of the horn* is be- 
tween entrenched and self-aggrandizing power striding 
over the land, and obliterating in its progress all the wise 
limitations that our patriot sires sought to place upon our 
rulers on the one side ; on the other, the spirit of civil 
liberty and the love of that sober-suited freedom which 
once characterized the American people. 

" The present administration and its candidate call 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 207 

upon their party in the name of party, and for the sake 
of party power, to endorse and sustain thera. "We Demo- 
crats, truly Democratic, and Eepublicans truly liberal, 
call upon all men, not in the name of a party, not for the 
name of a party, not for the success of a party, but for 
the sake of our whole country, to join us in arresting the 
onward and annihilating course of centralizing despotism. 
Shall personal prejudices or party spirit prevent our suc- 
cess ? Shall the counsels of George Washington be in 
vain ? " 

We do not propose to recite here the miserable story 
of Louisiana, how every wrong that could be devised was 
perpetrated on the unhappy people of that State, by fraud, 
by open violence, and by both combined, under the rule 
of those " captains-general of iniquity," Durell, Packard, 
Kellogg, and the rest, approved and sustained by the ad- 
ministration at Washington. The history of that series 
of crimes may be read, if nowhere else, in the appeal 
after appeal made by Senator Bayard to the justice, the 
humanity, the honor, even the interest, of the majority 
in 1873, 1874, and 1875. 

ISTor will we go into the details of the attempt to in- 
troduce the Louisiana system of management into Missis- 
sip])i. It was when he was resisting the latter that he 
received the only insult ever offered him in the Senate. 
A senator ventured to insinuate that Mr. Bayard was the 
secret enemy of the Union, The imputation was repelled 
with the scorn that it deserved. 

" I will simply say, that every drop of blood in my 
body comes from men and from women who, since this 
government was established, never harbored a thought or 
did an act unfaithful or unpatriotic. No man can assert 
the contrary. The Senator dare not do so. He might 



208 LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

attempt it by an innuendo, by classifying uie with those 
whom he terms the enemies of the country ; but he knows ■ 
as well as I that the man who says I ever did an act or 
uttered a word unfaithful to the integrity of my coun- 
try's government has lied in his throat. He bids me 
beware of November. In November the people of this 
country will submit their candidates for the popular ver- 
dict, and then the Senator may repeat his speech where 
he pleases. Then he may assault men as he pleases. If 
it shall please a merciful Heaven to give to this country 
a feeling of fraternity and union, then he and those who 
think and act with him will be consigned to private life 
and to an absence from political power. We will go be- 
fore the people of this country. I expect to go with all 
the rest as a private citizen, and submit the doctrines of 
the party with which I act ; to submit the measures that 
we propose for the government of this countiy to the 
intelligence, to the candor, to the patriotic sense, of the 
people of this country. If the verdict shall be against 
us, it will still be om- country, and we shall obey the men 
whom you have elected just as fully as if we had elected 
our oM'n candidates. Minorities have no terror for me — 
none at all. I have not flinched from declaring on any 
occasion an opinion that might have seemed unpopular 
at the time. 

" Is it to be held up to me that I have tried to make 
the people of the South feel that this was their country, 
that this was their government, and that they were bound 
to come and support it, and find protection as they gave 
it allegiance? If it be a crime, then am I the greatest 
sinner on earth. If such feelings, such pi'ofessions, and 
such ])iiii(iplcs shall consign me for ever to a minority, 
then wi'lcomc the shades of private life with the unstained 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 209 

conscience that I sliall carry there with it. I wonld rather 
have it than all the power that the people of this country 
can give, for I have something that they did not give, and 
which they can not deprive me of, and that is my own 
self-resjject." 

As he uttered these words, such vehement applause 
burst from the galleries that the President of the Senate 
ordered the sergeant-at-arms to place a force there to pre- 
serve order. The Senator who had made the assault took 
the opportunity to slip out of the chamber, and hid him- 
self for awhile from public gaze in the cloak-room. 

It was this constant, manly, and fearless struggle for 
the right that inspired a poet and patriot of Massachusetts 
to send him a greeting, couched in verse so noble, so 
trumpet-like in its ring, that our only regret is that we 
can not reproduce it here. An extract or two, however, 
may form a fitting close to this chapter. 

" But oh, wlien Peace resumes its holiest reign 
And hostile brethren might be friends again, 
Say, should the great republic, firmer grown 
By the sharp strife within her — with her own, 
Her own rash children, in the world's applause 
Rebels owned heroes for their ruined cause : 
Lee, dead, heart-broken for the field they lost, 
And stalwart Jackson harnessed at h]^ post ; 
Say, should she deal the fallen a needless blow, 
Proclaim V^ victis — to the ookquered woe? — 
Or seize the precious moment to efface 
Of war's foul canker every festering trace ? 
Bid prostrate towns revive from ruin's verge, 
See prostrate men to manlier life emerge, 
And freshening fields like gardens deck the wild 
Forlorn where once the burdening harvest smiled. 
Her aliened sons, returning to her side, 
To clasp VN'ith more than old maternal pride. 



210 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

And leagued with brothers on a hostile field 
Against a world in arms her spear and shield. 

"Such thoughts were thine and theirs, whose generous hope, 
Bounded within no party's narrow scope, 
Hailed the proud Union to itself restored, 
And claimed the grace its greatness dared afford. 



But, oh ! the change when that foul scheming crew, 

The pest of nations, to themselves untrue. 

The greedy placemen foully set on high, 

Through lowest arts that lure the vulgar eye, 

In power imperious, and to self so prone 

They count the public pocket for their own ; 

Who heard the whisper of a South restored 

Like the low summons to a funeral board ; 

Sent forth the carpet-bagman's horse-leech brood. 

To scatter firebrands — for their country's good ; 

Made him their tool the soldier who could call 

Late foes new friends by Richmond's leaguered walL 

Such the long trial, dark with troubled scenes 

Of public burdens grinding private means ; 

Of wild finance, and impotent delay, 

Just debts incurred with honest coin to pay ; 

States crushed beneath the heel of lawless might, 

A mongrel rule enforced of black and white; 

Veiling base purposes with false pretense. 

Alien to nature, trut'.i, and common sense; 

Fraudful to use their country's hapless hour 

To make perpetual their ill-gotten power ; 

To keep the great republic's glorious name. 

But change its substance for a hollow frame; 

To make their factious will the law supreme, 

All the old freedom gone — a vanished dream; 

A broken Constitution out of date, 

One man at length to rule and be the State : 

Enough to stir old patriots in their graves. 

That tlioir own children's children could be slaves I 



DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 211 



Mid storms of faction, thine the nobler strife 
To waive tlio bleeding land to fresher life ; 
To heal the wounds by war's dread struggles made, 
To grasp the hand that held a hostile blade; 
To make the lowliest as the loftiest feel 
Their hope concentred in the common weal, 
Once held the just republic's equal scheme, 
A glorious vision, if it were a dream ! 
Leaving to meaner minds their low affairs, 
Their false ambitions and degrading cares, 
Assured that parts diseased infect the whole, 
Thy country's all engaged thy statesman's soul. 

Through this wild turmoil, when vindictive rage 

Wrote damning records on our history's page, 

Law to uphold, to reassure the right, 

And foil each mean device of party spite. 

To make the cheat, the force, the mockery plain, 

And find, alas ! the labor all in vain ; 

Thy stern rebuke in calm and storm was heard, 

And pierced the future like a prophet-word." 



10 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTKALIZATION. 

" Pakty " is, after all, a confusing term to tlie pliiloso- 
pher, to every one in search of the underlying impulses 
of thought and action. Federal and Republican, Whig 
and Democrat, Democrat and Republican, when we come 
to consider these party names in their final analysis, will 
be found to imply very different things to persons of dif- 
ferent temperament and associations. Names very often 
fail to represent principles, and parties very often are di- 
vided against themselves in consequence of the diverse 
mental constitution and opinions of their leaders. The 
larger part of mankind take their political principles by 
inheritance and upon hearsay. Party is with them, in a 
great degree, a matter of education, of prejudice, so to 
speak. It is for this reason that it usually happens, when 
a party leader goes over to the other side, he fails to take 
his party with him. In 1856 the Conservative-Whig 
chiefs had nearly all become Democrats, but the mass of 
tlie party was Know-Nothing or Republican. 

In every state where the people govern themselves, 
iiiid must think because they are depended upon to regu- 
late their own affairs, there is a natural and inevitable 
division of parties upon the point of the distribution of 
power. At bottom, the differences of opinion among 
nien in tliis respect ai'c due to the temperament and con- 



THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 213 

stitution of individuals, but this it is in wliich parties 
originate and by which they are kept alive. The con- 
struction put upon constitutions, the interpretation of the 
powers and province of government, vary according to 
idiosyncrasy, and are, in the last analysis, types of indi- 
viduality. Of course there are party landmarks, in regard 
to which character and temperament effect nothing, but 
it is not wise in considering even the expediencies and 
temporary contrivances of parties to ignore the influences 
of idiosyncrasy. 

l^ote, for instance, the differences between Oliver P. 
Morton and Thomas F. Bayard in this particular. It is 
not necessary, in a parallel of this sort, to impugn mo- 
tives or to question the absolute sincerity of any leading 
statesmen. Both of these two — let us speak in the pres- 
ent tense, for, though Morton is dead, his influence still 
lives in the Senate — are men of towering intellect, culti- 
vated experience, and distinguished practical ability; 
both are men of intense and earnest convictions, and men 
likewise who have weighed and sifted opinions and 
judgments carefully in order to satisfy themselves that 
they are rightly held. Both are young, both ardent, both 
ambitious, both are filled with the consciousness of that 
sort of force in them which naturally assumes to direct 
in the national counsels. Yet their courses in the Senate 
are wide apart as the poles, as different as Sirocco is from 
Zephyr. Morton's intense individuality asserts itseK in 
the belief that man is the ever-active law for himself; 
that " definitions advance " ; that constitutions and insti- 
tutions, the work of man's hands, are i2?so facto not in- 
violable, but, on the contrary, uncompleted works, ever 
under the chisel, ever amendable and to be amended. 
Ilis egoism, his self-sufficiency, his sustained conscious- 



214 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ness of and reliance upon his own powers, have given 
him a disdain for tradition and for estabhshed things so 
great that he can scarcely restrain it within the bounds of 
politeness and decency. He is ever tempted to blurt out 
liis contempt of the mob, to cry with Horace, Odi 'pro- 
fanum vulgus et arceo. He insists upon a "strong" 
government, upon the absolute concentration and accu- 
mulation of power in the federal state, in other words, 
because he despises and has no faith in the capacity of 
the multitude which he wishes to lead. The "federal 
state," in his conceit of it, being always a very small 
"junto," of wdiich he is the active spirit — the steam 
power of the machine. 

Mr. Bayard, on the other hand, over and above his 
early teachings and traditions, is a Democrat upon in- 
stinct. He looks upon " government," not as a force, but 
as an aggregation of forces. It is not a thing in itself, 
but a bundle of things. Society is an association of indi- 
viduals ; and the maintenance of the equality and the char- 
acter of each contributes to the elevation of the whole. 
The stream can not rise higher than its source ; and Mor- 
ton, who assumes to be the mob's leader, can not dictate 
thoughts to the mob, but must derive his thoughts from 
them. Mr. Bayard believes that the people are the foun- 
tains of law and government, and that the better their 
individuality and character are preserved, developed, and 
stinnilated in right directions, the more enlightened will 
be the law and government which proceed out of them 
and represent the product and affluence of their thought 
and their morality. Law is the established rule of gov- 
ernment. It does not represent and interpret and stand 
for merely the "advanced" ideas and opinions of men 
alloat on the cnrrent, but the cooled-off experience of 



TDE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 215 

ages. Law is the alternative of force. It enables Mr. 
Bayard, his neighbors and friends, the whole community, 
in fact, to live peaceably in the enjoyment of their own 
thoughts and their own individuality, and without being 
constrained, under penalty of proscription, to adopt Mr. 
Morton's ideas, or anybody else's ideas, or to accept their 
stringent views of government, or some other doctrinaire's 
looser ones, as the only proper opinions to be held. 

Centralization, which was Mr. Morton's hobby, has 
been Mr. Bayard's aversion from the very beginning of 
his senatorial career. The feeling was probably intensi- 
fied at the outset by his experiences of the needs of the 
minority for better protection than they were able to 
secure under the application and administration of the 
rules of the Senate ; but Mr. Bayard understands, perhaps, 
as well as any other senator, the full force of what is 
meant and implied in the phrase, " the safeguards of the 
Constitution." From the first he has had a peculiar ab- 
horrence and dread of the " legislative anomalies created 
by the revolution which has accompanied the civil war." 
The " opportunities " for innovation which this state of 
things seemed to afford to Senator Morton were espe- 
cially dreaded by Mr. Bayard, whose principle it is that 
nothing which is slipped through, because an opportunity 
affords, can be properly denominated legislation, much 
less a " reform." Reforms are measures enacted coram 
2yo])ulo, not simply with the public consent, but upon the 
public demand, and after mature deliberation. The fact 
that we had " fallen upon strange times " should make us 
not more intrepid and hasty, but more reticent and care- 
ful in the enactment of laws which were not only to bind 
us, but future generations also. The Republicans, and 
Morton particularly, asserted that, because, by processes 



21G LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ultra vires of the Constitution, slavery had been abolished 
and the Union preserved, therefore it was admissible to 
secure other niodilications and "improvements" in the 
organic law in the same way. But Mr. Bayard held, 
with Mr. Lincoln, that the fact of one infraction of the 
Constitution does not excuse another. He held, further 
than Mr. Lincoln, that the fact that the Constitution had 
been infringed upon in one instance should make us only 
the more scrupulous about other encroachments of the 
same sort. "When Mr. Bayard first entered the Senate, 
he took ground in regard to the co-ordinate powers of 
government, and looked to the Supreme Court for the 
redress of grievances created by the usurpations of the 
executive, and the oppressions contemplated by the legis- 
lative license of the day. In his first long speech in the 
Senate,* Mr. Bayard said, in regard to Mr. Morton's views ; 
" The honorable senator declares, in reply to my friend 
from Ohio, that that which was a republican form of gov- 
ernment in 1787 is not such in 1870 ; that the lapse of 
time, the changes in the condition of the country, have 
destroyed the definition and signification of this word 
'republic,' which is older than the language which we 
speak. . . . Then, sir, if the Congress of the United States, 
or the majority of that Congress, chose to invade the ex- 
isting government of a State under the pretense that it 
was not republican according to their new-fangled ideas 
of republicanism, that State would have a right to come 
here or to go into a co-ordinate branch of the government, 
the judicial authority, and demand that they should be 
guaranteed in the inviolate possession of the rights they 
had when they entered the federal Union." " If you 
once admit," said Mr. Bayard, " that ' definitions advance,' 

* February 15, 1S70. Ou the representation of Mississippi. 



THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 217 

to tlic four winds of heaven go all your limitations 
npon legislative power." " The meaning of the wortls 
in a written charter of government," he added, " is all- 
important. It includes everything." In corroboration 
of his views of this subject, Mr. Bayard quotes the " Fed- 
eralist," Madison, Jefferson, and llamilton, and claims 
with Madison that a State constituted on Morton's plan 
would realize " the very definition of tyranny." 

What is " the underlying principle of a republican 
form of government ?" As Mr. Bayard defines it, " it is 
that the ultimate sovereignty rests in the mass of the peo- 
ple, and when you would ascertain what is the will of the 
people you necessarily mean the will of the majority." 
To restore this Mr. Bayard is willing to make consider- 
able sacrifices. " The power and spoils of party which 
may attend their political success I shall not envy, nor 
disturb their enjoyment of. To me, the happiness of 
seeing my native land once more enjoying that civil and 
religious freedom which can only exist under a govern- 
ment of laws, under a government of well-defined and 
limited powers, will more than compensate for the ab- 
sence of the supposed exultation consequent ujion a mere 
partisan triumph." Mr. Bayard fully believes in the con- 
stitutional method of relieving unconstitutional griev- 
ances. When the military attempted to exercise civil 
control, he said : " The framers of the Constitution in- 
tended that there should be an armed power which, in 
cases of necessity, could be called into service by the gen- 
eral government, and used for the purpose of enforcing 
the laws ; but they were very careful to say that Congress 
should not officer that militia, but that it plunild be done 
by the States themselves ; and that when you called this 
force, so organized, into service, then, and not until then, 



218 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

tlic laws of the Union could be executed by their aid, if 
it were necessary." 

In the very view and expectation of victory at the 
polls for the party of his love, Mr, Bayard w^as able and 
willing to say : * 

" I appeal to the Senate to rise above mere party views 
in this case, and remember that we are all Americans, liv- 
ing under this government, and all, I hope, equally at- 
tached to onr country. The Constitution, which we have 
invoked, was meant for minorities. The shifting sands 
of political life may put your party at no late day in a 
minority, and then, when you appeal to a majority in these 
halls for every protection which that Constitution enti- 
tles you to ask, I and those with whom I act in this body 
will freely aid you with our votes." 

This prudent and sagacious senator has a very great 
mistrust of great powers, because, under his own eyes, he 
has seen them so often and so greatly abused, and always 
by the influence of the "great men " who hold themselves 
so much above mere party principle. " All history," said 
he, in one of his speeches, " shows that the danger to free 
government is this: that, wdiere you intrust men with 
powers for the purposes of government, they use those 
very powers to consolidate power still further in their 
own hands, and to use what they have obtained for jyur- 
jposesfor which it never was designed.'' 

It is in this speech f that Mr. Bayard dwells most 
emphatically upon his dread of centralization, and gives 
his reasons most clearly for his fears. It will be remem- 
bered that this speech w\as made in the campaign against 
ex-President Grant's re-election, not for a third, but for a 

* S< iiMto, Maicli 20, 1871. Ku-Klux hill. 

t WilmingtoD, October 4, 1872, (Institute Hall.) 



THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATIOxN. 210 

second term. Mr. Bayard called attention to the e\ani})lo 
of Washington, " when he stood at the zenith of liis fame 
and power, . . . that remarkable man," said Mr. Bayard, 
" when he had achieved victory, when he was crowned 
with snccess, when laurels were thickest and his hands 
most loaded with power, laid all npon the altar of his 
country, and retired as a private citizen. . . . "Why was 
this act so remarkable?" says Mr. Bayard. "It was 
because the quality was so rare, that made his act so 
wonderful. . . . The issue which I tell you has been 
formed in this country, in one shape or another always 
asserting itself since the formation of the government, 
is the issue between the tendencies of power, wherever it 
is placed, to increase and centralize itself and the corre- 
sponding effort under our Constitution to prevent that 
centralization and insist upon a distribution of power." 
The men who drew up the Constitution had been the 
victims of arbitrary power, and sought to screen their 
descendants from its evil effects. They had been forced 
to take up arms to relieve themselves, and they wished to 
defend their successors from any such unhappy expedient 
or necessity. When, in the hour of victory over these 
external obstructions, they were summoned to draw up a 
constitution for the government of the whole country, it 
was their leading object to limit power, and, to effect this, 
they were careful in regard to its distribution. " The 
very distribution of power," in Mr. Bayard's words, " was 
to work its limitation." The tendency, ever active, ever 
constant, of power, is to steal from the many to the few, 
and this, if there were no other reason, would account for 
and excuse the existence of the Democratic party. 

" The men who formed this government," in Mr. 
Bayard's words, " had, as you know, suffered from arbi- 



220 L1>'E OF THOMAS F. BAYAED. 

trury ])(nvcr. They liad becu coerced by an arbitrary 
goveriiiiieiit. They took up arms to relieve themselves, 
aud, under God's providence, were successful. Their 
sufferings you know ; they are part of the history of your 
country, and I am sure it ought to be a most imj)ortaut 
lesson for us in all time. Having suifered from arbitrary 
power, tlie men who laid the foundations of this govern- 
ment determined that they would put limitations upon 
power, no matter where that power was deposited. They 
knew the weakness of the human heart ; they knew that 
if you give a man power he wull exercise it for the most 
advantage to himself and in ways not intended ; and they 
therefore determined that in the Constitution of the gov- 
ernment of the United States there should be no grant of 
power that was not limited, no such thing as an absolute 
power, no power that was to be without limitation both 
as to its extent and duration. How did they accomplish 
that ? By distributing powers, by dividing our govern- 
ment into different departments, all of which should bo 
co-ordinate and equal, none of which should be absolute 
or superior. The national legislature was created with 
ample power to make laws, but not absolutely, for the 
President had his right to veto. There was also the 
check of a written Constitution that those laws should 
not pass the subjects or the extent of power conferred 
by its provisions; but, in case they did, there was the 
other great check upon them, the judicial department. 
Even if the Congress and the President assented to the 
law, it was to be sul)jected to the test whether, in the 
minds of the judiciary of the country, it was or was 
not an infringement of the limitations imposed by the 
written charter." 

If we prevent the distribution of power, we prevent 



THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 221 

its being limited also. We aid it in becoming consoli- 
dated and centralized. Tlie Democratic party, in Mr. 
Bayard's view, owes its existence and its perjoetnity not 
to the fact that " it contains better men than other parties, 
not that they are less fallible than their fellow citizens, 
or more learned, or more wise," but because its member- 
ship is " based on the principle of freedom, of opposition 
to centralized power, and an insistence on the distribution 
and limitation of powers for the public safety." 

The respect which the Democratic party has invariably 
had for this principle-has measurably preserved the rights 
of the States, and has stood in the way of all sorts of class 
legislation. This organization, weak in many other re- 
spects, has been opposed to imperial grants of land, pro- 
miscuous chartering of banks and every other offense 
against the proper distribution of power. It has upheld 
the principle of local self-government as distinguished 
from imperialism, and upon the basis of these issues it has 
preserved and will continue to maintain its life, in spite 
of some things, partly constitutional, partly historical, 
which embarrass its action, and, in a less durable and 
vigorous organization, would tend to promote dissolution 
and death. As Mr. Bayard has said : " A party with such 
a principle underlying it will exist so long as the very 
forms of freedom are left in this country ; " no matter 
under what name, the party will continue to exist. Tliis 
non-interference of government with things aside from its 
proper concern, Mr. Bayard takes to be one main source 
of our national prosperity. " I believe," said ho, " it was 
for this reason, thus broadly stated, that prosperity, good 
feeling, and good order existed throughout our land, 
simply because no jpower of the government urns xinjed 
out of its jproxjer sphere^ and the harmony between 



222 LIFE OF THOSIAS F. BAYARD. 

federal and State governments was suffered to remain 
undisturbed, in accordance with the wise system arranged 
by our forefathers. Nothing but the truth, the actual 
vitality of this princii^le that governmental powers, always 
seeking to aggrandize themselves in one form or another, 
are steadily to be kept in check by the will of the peojilc 
over whom they are sought to be exercised, has ever 
enabled the Democratic party to maintain its existence 
during all political fluctuations, changes of events and 
conditions in this country during the whole of the 
present century." 

The men who formed this government wanted, the 
people to exercise it. In Mr. Bayard's own words : 
" Not only did they mean the people of their generation 
to be free, but they meant their posterity to be free ; that 
the government was to be preserved by the constant ex- 
ercise of the principles upon which it was founded ; and, 
therefore, when they distributed power so that centraliza- 
tion should be checked and absolute power made — as far 
as, humanly, it could be made — impossible, they by that 
very act gave the people throughout the country the 
right and ojyportunity of local self-government. What 
does that mean ? It means the school of government ; it 
means the opportunity to learn how to be a citizen of the 
United States by learning what the functions and duties 
of a citizen are ; and how can you learn unless you prac- 
tice and try ? 

" Therefore, I beg you to understand the wisdom of 
tlie men wlio founded this government. They accom- 
plished a double object by distributing powers, insisting 
upon the State systems and the great rule and principles 
of local self-government in ojiposition to centralization. 
They did that for the purpose of educating the people to 



THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 223 

become a self-governing nation. The wisdom of all this 
plan is this : unless the people are practiced in self-gov- 
ernment, the J will not be fit to govern themselves, and, 
unless they do govern themselves locally according to 
their local interests, central power will seize upon them 
and their liberties, and control them. So that, in order 
to be free, in this broad land, two things are required : 
that j^ower shall be diffused, throughout the country and 
not centralized at Washington, and that the people shall 
exercise their powders in order to fit them to carry on the 
government." 

The opposition of the Democratic party to the four- 
teenth and fifteenth amendments was chiefly based upon 
the fact of their tendency to centralize power. It was 
upon this issue that the Ku-Klux act and all the enforce- 
ment bills have been opposed, and this identical and very 
natural feeling still keeps alive the opposition to enact- 
ments providing for the employment of troops and dep- 
uty United States marshals and supervisors at the polls. 
As Mr. Bayard has said : " The opposition that we have 
to-day to the laws passed by Congress to control our elec- 
tions, to place our State officials under indictment and 
punish them for a fair and reasonable execution of the 
State law^s, is all based upon the same reason. It is our 
opposition to the principle of centralization." 

In December, 1870, the Southern Express Company 
came to Congress to get a charter. Mr. Bayard opposed 
the bill steadily, because it was a step in the direction of 
centralization. "This matter," said he,* "of drawing 
all these powers into the federal net is one great source 
of our present political complications." It is an entirely 
modern invention for Congress to set about the granting 

* In the Senate, Decembor IG, 1870. 



22i LIFi^ OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

of cliarters, and tlierc will be no end to tlic 2">i'actice if 
once begun, once permitted. If reason and common 
sense have anything at all to do with chartering incor- 
porations, they should not be incorporated except in the 
localities where the individuals who compose them and 
the property they administer are to be found. " I am a 
friend to such enterprises as are proj)osed by this bill," 
said Mr. Bayard ; " but I am not friendly to Congress 
undertaking to deal with them." Hence, the Senator 
meant to vote against this bill and all others like it. 
One very strong reason for opposing all such measures 
was that they diverted into the United States courts a 
whole class of actions growing out of this most multifari- 
ous branch of business, thus divesting State courts of a 
very extensive line of jurisdiction previously their own 
exclusively. The practical operation of the federal elec- 
tion laws is still more objectionable for the same rea- 
sons. 

Mr. Bayard * opposed the scheme for incorporating 
the Japanese Steam ^Navigation Company by act of Con- 
gress, on exactly the same principle. " Before we can 
grant any such cliarters," he said, " we must settle the 
fact of our authority to do any such thing under this Con- 
stitution of ours, of limited, specific, delegated powers." 
But, even independently of jurisdiction, Mr. Bayard 
looked upon the practice as impolitic. " I object," said 
he, " to the practice of the Congress of the United States 
turning itself into a vast machine for creating coi-pora- 
tions. ... If there was one thing that the founders of 
this government thought they would prevent, it w^as the 
accumulation of vast sums of property in individual hands. 
Therefore they abolished the rule of primogeniture ; they 

* Senate, February 6, 1871. 



THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIifATlON. 225 

provided for the division of fortunes ; tliej joroclaimed 
an easy method of barring all entails ; everything that 
could tend to diffuse and dissipate property was resorted 
tOj and resorted to by them in the fond hope that it would 
prevent the vast aggregation of fortunes in individual 
hands. And yet what have we lived to see? So far 
from having an equality of fortune produced among our 
people, so far from having but little difference in the 
amount of means held by men throughout the country, 
we have lived in the last ten years of our history to find 
a difference between the fortunes of individuals more 
vast, more unhealthy, and more unsound than any other 
government in this world can give example of." This 
state of things has been mainly caused by the action of 
government in sophisticating money so as to make it 
safer for men to do business collectively than individu- 
ally, and by protecting such gigantic co-operative action 
by the favors extended to corporations. It would not 
have been possible, Mr. Bayard thinks, for corporations 
to attain their present gigantic and unwieldy proportions, 
but for the illicit powers secured by them from legisla- 
tures. State and federal. When the proposition was made 
to incorporate, under a sort of general act, a system of 
railroads in the territories,* it was opposed by Mr. Bay- 
ard upon the ground that " we have had enough and 
more than enough of corporation in the United States ; 
its shadows are seen in every legislature in the land, and 
they are oftentimes seen in the halls of Congress. . . . 
I would," he said, in reference to this same subject,f 
" give no corporation the power to live in a State, except 
at the pleasure of the legislature of that State. The pow- 
er of revocation is one that ought to be retained in the 
* Senate, April 9, 16'74. f -^P"! 13, 1874. 



226 I^IFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

sovereignty of tlic people ; the contract to be maintained 
so long as it is kept in good f aitli and for public uses. The 
original grant of this franchise is for public benefit, and, 
^Yhenever public benefit dictates its revocation, that revo- 
cation should take place." 

In the cases of the Chicago and Boston fires, Mr. 
Bayard, with a heart full of sympathy for so much sufEer- 
ing, yet felt himself constrained to set his face sternly 
against the remissions of customs duties which were 
proposed. "Hard cases," he said, "make bad prece- 
dents. We are rapidly coming down to something like 
this : When the extent of a calamity warrants it, it is 
lawful to infringe upon and violate the Constitution ; 
when the casualty is slight, we are not at liberty to in- 
dulge our feelings and our sympathies. I hold, on the 
contrary, that, the more you expand a dangerous principle, 
the worse it is ; and, if you are to infringe the Constitu- 
tion at all, you had better confine yourself to slight cases. 
The danger is, in this case, of bringing in the extent of 
this catastrophe as a reason why this act is in conflict 
with this provision of the Constitution^ Any such legis- 
lation as this Mr. Bayard considers nothing else than 
" unjust la^nshness." 

In this same speech, from which we have previously 
quoted on " dccentrahzation of power as the issue of 
the hour," * Mr. Bayard said : 

" What will we be, my friends, if we are not to exer- 
cise our powers of government in regard to our local con- 
cerns ? Nay, further, what will become of our local con- 
cerns if we who live in the locality are not to have the 
sole voice in regulating them ? If an a1)use occurs, who 

* Wilmington, October 4, 1874. 



THE BATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 227 

■will know it so well as tliosc wJio suffer from it ? If the 
slioe pinches, who knows it so well as the man who wears 
the shoe ? If a community is suffering from official rob- 
bery, from plunder of any kind, who knows it and suffers 
from it ? The tax-payers and the property-holders. They 
arc the men whose property is taken ; they are the men 
who would seek to apply the remedy. Others at a dis- 
tance may hear of it, but it will produce no impression 
upon them. If you take away from a people the control 
of those matters which are essential to their good govern- 
ment, what will be the result ? They will give up all in- 
terest in the government, and they will become the sup- 
ple suppliants at the feet of the central power for any 
favor that they may get. 

" Look for one instant at what was the condition of 
Fi'ance. Louis IS^apoleon Bonaparte was president of 
the French republic. Powers were given to him to gov- 
ern that country according to a republican form. He 
used those powers with base treachery for the purpose of 
converting a republic into an empire, and he accom- 
plished that end. At the cost of the blood of many of 
his fellow citizens, he placed himself in the saddle, and 
his horse's feet upon the neck of the French people. 
What was the result ? Instantly commenced the reign of 
consolidated power. All over France, the germ of local 
self-government was destroyed. If any population desired 
to raise a loan for the purpose of opening streets, beautify- 
ing their town, erecting public buildings, or for any other 
local purpose, all was to be done subject to the sanction 
of the imperial government in Paris. If they wished to 
elect a mayor of their city, they had the privilege of se- 
lecting a number of names, and out of those names the 
emperor condescended to choose the man he liked. 



228 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

" This was the history of French government. "What 
■was the result? The people no longer bothered them- 
selves about it. They set to work to attend to their pri- 
vate affairs. They spun their beautiful silks ; they made 
their exquisite velvets. They grew rich ; they grew vo- 
luptuous ; they grew gay. But where was self-govern- 
ment, and where were their liberties ? France was never 
so rich in money, so filled with men, Paris never so gay 
and beautiful, as when the collision between France and 
Germany occurred. 

" Look, then, at the picture. ISTapoleon had had just 
war enough in the Crimea to whet anew the ancient ardor 
of the French people for military glory. He had the luck 
to have that war end just at the time when the French 
fame was highest. Subsequently he had a collision with 
Austria, and upon the battle-fields of Italy he again had 
singular good military fortune, which again just ended in 
good time. The fortune of war had been with him, and 
the pretext for keeping up enormous military establish- 
ments to gratify the vanity of the people and to fortify 
his own power over them was given to him. But the time 
of struggle Avith Germany came — Germany, compact and 
resolute ; taught in the hard school of adversity the true 
way to success; Germany, whoj through long years of 
humiliation at the hands of France, had learned those les- 
sons that adversity alone can teach men or nations. The 
French met them in over-confidence ; the Germans met 
the French with resolute energy ; and you know the re- 
sult And can it be, with a pursuance of this 

system of centralization, that these powers can long re- 
main to us ? I ask you to think of it, you men who may 
be discontented with the nomination of Horace Greeley, 
you men who may be discontented with the Democratic 



THE RATTLE AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 229 

party or the Liberal Kepiiblicaii party, for tlicy are now 
one, and acting firmly together, 

" So far as the result upon our executive and our leg- 
islative departments in the national government is con- 
cerned, the Liberal Republicans and the Democrats stand or 
fall together for the next four years ; and what will happen 
after that it will be time enough for us to know when the 
issues arise. When they do arise, we will test them by the 
same principles by which we are testing measures to-day. 

" This is my position," said he, in conclusion. " I 
want it to be your position. I want it to be the position 
of every man, whether he is of my party or not, I want 
him to have riglits that neither I nor my party can invade, 
and I want my party and myself to stand equal with him 
in that respect. And can it be, with a pursuance of this 
system of centralization, that these powers can long re- 
main to us ? I ask you to think of it, you men who may 
be discontented with nominations. Our people become 
fit to take part in large matters by being educated in mi- 
nor matters, A man goes to the county seat to serve as 
commissioner or assessor, and he learns the order of busi- 
ness : how to levy taxes, how to conduct the affairs of the 
county, how to provide for the poor, how to provide for 
the schools, how to provide for the roads, how to provide 
'for the police, and to attend to all the matters necessary 
for local self-government. After a time, having that 
knowledge, he expands his attention and his faculties to 
the government of his State, and after he has learned how 
to govern his State, and has been so practiced, he is much 
more fitted then to take part in the government of other 
States in the general government. That is the natural 
expansion. It is the natural course of human conduct in 
regard to our business affairs. We begin by trusting men 



230 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

in a small way. As their caj^acities are proven and ex- 
erted they expand, and as they expand the trust expands, 
and as the trust expands their experience expands, until 
they become the valued members of society upon whose 
judgment and wisdom and good character we all rely for 
guidance in our daily affairs. 

" I beg of you, therefore, do not by your votes de- 
stroy the autonomy of your State. Do not consent to 
act with any party that does so destroy it. It is essential 
to your liberties and mine. I am speaking as much for 
you, my Republican fellow-citizens, as for myself, al- 
though at this time the immediate effect of your law is 
to strike down officials who are elected by men who think 
in politics as I do. But there is no difference to me in 
that. I would feel as unwilling to see the just powers of 
a Republican official in the State of Delaware interfered 
with unduly as I would the just powers of a man of my 
own party, and I would fly as quickly to the forum here 
before the people, or go into court to insist upon his 
rights, as I would upon my own or of a man who be- 
longed to the same political party as myself." 

In New England and the West, and in other sections 
also, where the township system, as yet intact, preserves 
to every voter the consciousness of local self-government, 
the force of Mr. Bayard's apprehensions and warnings is ' 
naturally much less felt than in communities where the 
State and county systems have been gradually impaired 
by federal encroachments. But, if the township system 
should be left unsupported at last, how can it stand alone ? 
And, if it should fall, would not those who have lived 
under it so long, and prospered by means of it, lose ten 
times as much, and feel their losses ten times as acutely, 
as more Southern communities ? 



CHAPTER XII. 

ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 

As the power of the federal government kept steadily 
increasing at the expense of the rights of the States and 
of the people, so increased the inefficiency and extrava- 
gance of the public service. Offices came to be looked 
upon as rewards for political services, and were distrib- 
uted, not among those who could best perform the duties, 
but those who had most assisted, or would most assist, in 
winning a political triumph. The higher officials claimed 
and received their allotments of patronage, w^hich each 
doled out to the hungry aspirants from his State, county, 
or district, according to a scale of merits well understood, 
in w^hich fitness for the duties of the office w^as the last 
thing considered (if considered at all). 

Naturally, the persons selected for such merits cared 
much for the continued favor of their patrons, and but 
little, if at all, for the public service. It was not to be 
supposed that a clerk in a department, who had received 
his position as a reward for faithful work at primary 
meetings or in corner groceries, should expect to have no 
easier place than the clerk in a bank or store who owed 
his situation merely to honesty and capacity. If hours 
of work were made short and pay high, if the men were 
inefficient or idle, the defect could be made up by em- 



232 I^"'E OF TnOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ploying more ; thus widening the area and influence of 
administrative patronage. 

It is not alleged that this state of things existed in all 
the departments — there have always been honorable ex- 
ceptions ; just as in the vast army of officials there have 
been many faithful and laborious public servants ; but 
such was the natural tendency of the whole system. 

Nor do we lay the existence of this state of things to 
the charge of the Republican party alone. The seeds of 
tlie evil had been sown long before they came into power. 
But, while it was contrary to the fundamental princi23les 
of true Democracy, it was accordant with the Republican 
idea of aggrandizing federal power and influence ; and, 
inconsequence, under a Republican administration it bur- 
geoned and blossomed with a luxuriance of poisonous 
growth never before dreamed of, shocking and disgusting 
the wiser and more patriotic men of that party. 

To such a pass had things come by the close of John- 
son's presidency that one of the leading thinkers of the 
North wrote : 

" Our present system of appointments to office is not 
only scandalously wasteful, but is doing more to lower tlio 
tone of public morals than all other causes together. It in- 
volves every member of Congress in a network of corrupt 
bargains from which there is no escape. ... As compe- 
tence is the last qualification regarded, the very govern- 
ment itself keeps before the people a standing incentive 
to dishonesty by paying high wages for poor work." * 

And when, by dint of hard service, or strong recom- 
mendations, the prize of a position in some public office 
had been won, it was by no means an unalloyed felicity. 
The free American citizen had riveted a collar about his ■ 

* Mr. J. R. Lowell, in " North Aiucricau Review," January, 1809. 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 233 

neck engraved witli the name of tlic administration, and 
" Gurtli, the born thrall of Cedric the Saxon," would not 
have envied him his liberty. Whatever his political views 
might be, on any matter on which he could express an opin- 
ion or cast a vote, he was now bound to support the admin- 
istration through thick and thin. Spies, calling themselves 
" members of the Q. A. R.," or belonging to the j)eculiar 
system of delatorship organized by Mr. Boutwcll, infested 
all the departments, listening to every word, and ready 
to report any want of zeal or independence of thought 
detected in any employee. Not only this, but they were 
expected to contribute a percentage of their wages to the 
administration campaign fund, and they dared not refuse 
or murmur. Here and there a bold spirit offered resist- 
ance to this abject slavery, and was quickly made an ex- 
ample of. ISTay, the pretext of voluntary contributions 
was cast aside, and the spectacle was presented of a Unit- 
ed States marshal standing at the pay-table and taking 
the tax from each salary as it was paid. And this plan 
was presently replaced by the simpler mode of " docking " 
the salaries, and filching a corruption fund from the bread 
of women and children. 

The extravagant recklessness and wastefulness of the 
war had also produced their natural results. The federal 
government was expected to distribute with a lavish hand 
the money and the property of the people whenever a 
sufficient claim to its bounty could be established ; and 
what constituted the sufficiency of a claim can be very 
well understood. The doctrine of internal improvements 
took its widest swing, and it became possible to bribe 
whole States and sections by colossal subsidies or dona- 
tions. The public lands were given away by Congress 
with reckless prodigality to great corporations to make 



234 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

railroads which, had they really been needed, could have 
been better made by private enterprise, and at a fraction 
of the cost. The Northern Pacific was endowed with 
lands equal in area to the combined territories of Den- 
mark, Holland, Belgium, Portugal, and Greece ; and 
there were railroad schemes before Congress for appro- 
priating 400,000,000 acres of the public domain. Of 
course this monstrous extravagance fostered corruption 
of every kind ; schemes fastened themselves like parasites 
Upon other schemes ; log-rolling secm-ed concert of action 
in the raids on the public purse ; and that extraordinary 
culmination of fraud and impudence known as the Credit 
Mobilier was not so remarkable for its shamelessness as 
for its exposure. 

Of this state of things the writer whom we have just 
quoted says : 

" Congress itself is fast becoming a brokers' board for 
operators on the treasury. Corporate interests are begin- 
ning to be represented there, quite as much as the po- 
litical opinions of constituencies ; and so universal is the 
want of faith in honest motive that not a measure can 
pass involving the payment of public money without 
charges of corruption." 

It was fondly hoped by those Pepublicans in whom 
party spirit had not overmastered patriotism, that this 
state of things would be greatly improved, if not entirely 
reformed, by the election of General Grant. As his 
military services and success had lifted him to his exalted 
position, it was believed that he would be able to keep 
himself independent of the more debasing political influ- 
ences ; his powers of resistance were considered equal to 
any strain ; and the fact that lie had been inculpated in 
no fraudulent act created a natural belief that he was 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 235 

honest and wonld sustain honesty. It is really pathetic, 
in the light of subsequent events, to read the glowing 
anticipations of that time. Never were brighter hopes 
doomed to more humiliating disappointment. "Whether, 
as his enemies alleged, Grant went into the presidency 
fully prepared to run the machine in the old corrupt way, 
and make out of the office the most that he could for 
himself and his friends ; or whether, as his apologists say, 
he wished to act uprightly, but was forced to surrender 
to the horde of politicians and office-seekers, it is not our 
business to decide, nor need the country greatly care. 
The fact remains that under his administration such a 
tide of profligacy, extravagance, corruption, and malfea- 
sance, in nearly all branches of the public service, set in, 
as made previous abuses seem trifling in comparison. 
This is not a prejudiced Democratic judgment : a well- 
known Republican writer * says, " It was reserved for 
the administration of President Grant to descend lower 
than the worst of its predecessors in the scale of self- 
degradation." And this censure was passed in October, 
1869, before Grant had been in office eight months of his 
eight years ; before the people had begun to measure the 
extent and fathom the depths of Grantism. 

"We do not mean to say that President Grant selected 
his friends chiefly for their dishonesty ; but it was his 
singular infelicity that in so large a number of cases those 
whom he honored with special confidence, appointed to 
offices of trust, and stood by despite evil report, damag- 
ing disclosures, and even judicial sentence, turned out to 
be swindlers and thieves. There was " Boss " Shepherd 
and his crew in the District of Columbia, who, being 
authorized to expend $4,000,000 in the improvement of 

* Mr. Henry Brooks Adams. 
11 



236 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

streets and general embellishnient of Washington city, 
spent $20,000,000, and raised the debt of the District to 
$25,000,000. How this was done, one sample may suffice. 
A contract for a job of grading was taken at §975. The 
first contractor did a small portion of the work, for which 
he received $1,450, when he died. The rest of the work 
was then turned over to another party, who received 
$18,000 for what he did or did not do. Another man, an 
adventm-er " on the make," received $97,000 for absolutely 
nothing at all, " without an hour of labor or a penny of 
responsibility." Does anybody suppose that Shepherd, 
Mullett, and the rest, went about like the Caliph Haroun 
Alraschid, bestowing all these purses of gold from the 
people's hard earnings in mere caprice of bounty, or were 
they too " on the make " ? 

The latter was the universal belief, nor was it lessened 
by that unparalleled and most outrageous attempt, " that 
crime," as Mr. Bayard called it, " not fit to be mentioned 
in our own day and time," the safe-burglary conspiracy 
to convict Mr. Alexander of a felony committed by the 
conspirators themselves. The plot failed, but all the 
storm of popular indignation at w^'ongs known, and others 
more than suspected, never shook the President's con- 
fiding affection for " Boss " Shepherd, any more than for 
Murphy, or Leet, or Babcock, or scores of others. His 
bHnd devotion to his idols seemed to have taken for its 
motto Moore's passionate couplet : 

"I know not, T ask not, if guilt's in that heart; 
I but know that I lovo theo, whatever thou art." 

Such was the state of things with which Mr. Bayard 
and those who felt and acted with him had to contend. 
But for ten years he was one of a feeble minority, where 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 237 

liis voice indeed could be heard, and was lieard, clear as a 
clarion, in the denunciation of wrong and the defense of 
right, but where it was next to impossible to initiate any 
measure of reform, and quite impossible to cany it. 
Kevenue bills, moreover, originate in the lower house, 
so that a senator had but little opportunity for any prac- 
tical movement in the way of retrenchment. But what 
ho could do, he did. He cast his unavailing vote, and ho 
stripped the masks of patriotism, of morality, of expe- 
diency, from selfish, unjust, and unwise legislation. And 
he brought to the consideration of these questions not 
only the unswerving integrity, the stainless honor which 
political foes as well as friends admire in his character, 
but also that clear practical insight, the gift of his thor- 
ough business training, which enabled him to expose the 
futility of the schemes of crotchety enthusiasts, and dis- 
entangle the sophistries of crafty contrivers, and to show 
the straightforward, practical business way of dealing 
with the matter. 

In March, 1873, a bill was passed by Congress which, 
owing in part to a misunderstanding of its real operation, 
excited the public mind to a degree disproportioned to its 
importance. This was the l)ill regulating the compensa- 
tion of members and other public officials, coarsely called 
the " salary grab." The popular conception of it was that 
members had agreed to vote themselves a large and un- 
justifiable increase of pay, at a time when the country 
could ill bear any additional burden. This, however, was 
not exactly the case. The bill, so far as members of Con- 
gress were concerned, provided for an equalization of the 
pay by giving each senator, representative, and delegate 
$7,500 a year in lieu of the $5,000 and mileage before 
allowed. This, to the members who lived most distant 



238 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

from Washington, would have been lessening of salary : 
to a large fraction it would have given a trifling increase : 
and to the rest, an increase more or less considerable. It 
is possible that, considc^i'ing the greatly enhanced expenses 
of hving in Washington, and the fact that most of the 
members had left other profitable avocations, the former 
salary, in the depreciated currency, may not have been a 
sufficient compensation. But the most objectionable fea- 
ture of the bill was a retroactive clause extending the in- 
creased payment over the Forty-second Congress then just 
expiring. 

Knowing the opposition that would be raised, the 
framers of the measure held it back until the very last 
hours of the Congress, and then brought it forward, when 
there was no time left for discussion, tacked to the general 
appropriation bill. It was at midnight of March 3d that 
the bill was reported from the committee of conference, 
and the Congress expired at noon of the next day. Mr. 
Bayard and those who thought with him disapproved the 
bill, and especially the retroactive feature ; but what was 
to be done ? The whole bill had to stand or fall as it was ; 
and the only alternatives were to pass it as it stood, or to 
defeat it altogether, in which latter case, of course, as there 
would have been no appropriation to carry on the govern- 
ment, it. would have been necessary to assemble Congress 
the next month, causinr^ directly a heavy pecuniary loss 
to the country, and indirectly much greater damage in 
unwise and injurious legislation. Mr. Bayard, without 
hesitation, took the lesser of the two evils, and voted for 
the bill in preference to the extra session. The back pay 
lianded to him he returned to the treasury of the United 
States. 

So loud was the expression of popular disapprobation 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 231) 

of this measure, that even its foremost advocates were 
aLanned at the probable consequences, and in January, 
18Y4, Senator Morton introduced a bill to reduce the 
salaries of members of Congress to the former rates, and 
providing for the return to the 'treasury of the excess 
iilready paid. The latter absurd and impracticable propo- 
sition was, of course, only a tub to the popular whale ; 
none knew better than the senator that it could not be 
carried out. 

But Mr. Bayard was not the man to be blown around 
by every real or supposed breath of public opinion. As 
he had voted for the measure while disapproving it, be- 
cause he saw that by doing so he was serving the public 
interest, so now he had the courage to face the storm and 
tell the public that it was in error. While the introducer 
of the bill was, or pretended to be, tremulously eager to 
undo his om'u work, Mr. Bayard stood boldly forward to 
insist that equity and reason should govern their action, 
and that two wrongs would not make a right. He showed 
that the plan to compel members to refund the excess of 
pay by a tax on their future salaries, even if constitutional, 
would operate unequally, and would be impracticable in 
many cases, such as that of Mr. Casserly, who had resigned 
his seat. 

The Houses of Congress had the power to fix the com- 
pensation of their own members ; there was no question 
of that ; and in determining it they should be guided by 
justice alone — justice to the public and justice to them- 
selves. It should be liberal enough for a reasonable and 
comfortable maintenance, and no more ; not so high as to 
make the salary the chief object of ambition, nor so low 
as to tempt members to eke it out by indirect means, or 
to add another to the causes, already too numerous, which 



240 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

rendered men of high ability and character rehictant to 
seek public office. On this point he says, in his speech of 
January 7, 187-i : 

" Mr. President, in my opinion one of the chief dan- 
gers of onr day and coimtry is the devotion of citizens to 
their private pursuits, to the neglect of their public du- 
ties. If this federal Constitution shall go down, if this 
experiment for human self-government shall fail, there 
Avill be few more to blame than those intelligent men 
who have grown rich in their private pursuits, and al- 
lowed places of high public trust and honor to be filled 
by men less worthy and able than themselves, but who 
were willing at least to give their time to public service. 
Who does not know of the frequent advice to young men 
of talent and cliaracter : ' Keep out of politics ; stick to 
your business, to your profession, to your ledger, to your 
office, to your studio ; keep out of politics' ? This is the 
common cry which is accepted as wise, as just, as com- 
mendable, in a country which must depend for the eleva- 
tion and the continuance of its government upon the best 
efforts of its most intelligent, its most able, its most con- 
scientious men. 

"What is the consequence of all this un-American, 
worldly-wise advice to the youth of our country, too often 
followed by them ? They have sought to make the name 
of politician discreditable. They have sought to make 
attention to public duties suspicious. And what has been 
the result, senatoi^? Has it not been a lower tone of 
public service ? Has it not been a degraded tone of pub- 
lic service? I say that to a certain degi-ee it has ; for I 
believe if there should be an increase in honorable com- 
]ietition between men of intellect and character for pub- 
lic position, it would tend largely to the elevation of the 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 04.X 

tone of our service and to the benefit of the whole coun- 
try. This government is not an automatic machine. It 
is not to run itself. It calls for the efforts constantly, and 
often times the self-sacriiicing elforts of the ablest and the 
purest and the bravest, to guide it on in the right direc- 
tion, and to keep it in the paths of honor and safety. 

" Now, senators, if a large pay would of itselfc^^ure 
really the best men, if it would really fill Congress with 
statesmen worthy of the name, what measure of economy 
would be so beneficent to the whole people ? The benefit 
to the people of even one pure-minded, clear-headed, 
patriotic man in the Congress of the United States, in 
either house, is not to be weighed in money, and scarce 
any sum in reason but would wisely be paid if that alone 
would secure it. I do not say that it would ; I do not 
believe that by money alone such things arc to be accom- 
plished. The thing is for us to consider, upon a question 
so broad as this, what is the just medium that will tend to 
secure the presence here of proper men capable of render- 
ing valuable service to the country ? A proper, res]3ect- 
able maintenance ought to be secured — no more. The Rep- 
resentatives should not be harassed and embarrassed by 
constant pecuniary needs. A man is not to come here to 
save or make money by his office and position ; such a 
man is unfit for the place, and falls far below a proper 
comprehension of its duties and responsibility." 
|r His proposition, in view of the general public distress, 
and the urgent necessity for economy, was that the pay 
of members of the houses should be replaced at wdiat it 
was before the change, without any attempt to compel 
restitution of the sums already paid. The increased sala- 
ries of heads of departments and officers and employees 
of Congress, he thought, should remain as they had been 



242 I^I™ OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

fixed. His speech concludes tlius : " I am perfectly aware 
that there is a great deal more that is important in this 
subject of compensation for public service. Certain it is 
that I am not in favor of illegitimate appropriations for 
expenditures ; and, as I am opposed to illegitimate expen- 
diture, I wish to prevent that by a reasonable, legitimate 
appropriation. You have seen already how a habit has 
grown into the executive departments of allowances of 
a questionable nature for those conveniences which are 
essential to the prompt transaction of public business, 
and scandal has been created by it ; but I think the best 
way to avoid these things is to make a reasonable appro- 
priation, that shall not drive officials, high or low, into 
illegitimate methods of eking out an insufficient income. 

" Mr. President, I think it of the last importance to 
the people of this country that they should have confi- 
dence in the integrity, the home-bred pecuniary honesty, 
of their representatives and of their rulers. It is the duty 
of every man to do what he can to establish that. It is 
his duty equally, in establishing confidence, to strike down 
in any place, high or low, dishonesty and peculation in 
officials. I rejoice, sir, that the public eye is turned in 
such criticism. It has not turned too soon ; it can not be 
turned too often or too closely ; and I hope the day will 
come when any public official of the United States who 
is found engaging, directly or indirectly, in abuses of the 
privileges of his office by small peculations, by indirect 
and illegitimate gains, will be rebuked by a wholesome 
public sentiment of the country, and that no man in office 
will be found to sustain such conduct. And it is from 
high officials that the example can come with best effect, 
and the public service surely needs it. 

" Sir, I hope public attention and displeasure have been 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 2-13 

aroused. I hope tliej will not slumber until these abuses 
shall have been remedied. But, depend upon it, the peoj)le, 
who from a sense of honesty demand these reforms, are too 
just to ask for a sacrifice that is unnatural, and which can 
not be performed except at a loss to the public service." 

The singular lack of wisdom of the ruling party in 
all matters of political economy and finance — next to 
their theories of currency, for a pai-allel to which we 
must go back to the days of John Law — was chiefly dis- 
played in their schemes of tariff and excise. Instead of 
adjusting the burden of taxation so as to make it press as 
equally as possible, some industries were pampered and 
others crushed with extortionate imposts. Caprice, or 
sentiment, or even less excusable motives, seemed so to 
govern their measures that they succeeded in combining 
the greatest possible inconvenience and distress with the 
least proportionate net income to the public purse. They 
seemed not to know that in all matters of this kind there 
is a point which it is futile to attempt to pass, because 
men will take the chances of breaking or evading the 
law rather than pay the excessive tax ; and, let coast- 
guardsmen and excisemen be multiplied as you will, for 
one smuggler or illicit manufacturer that is caught, ten 
go free. As for the pernicious effect of enlisting the 
feelings of the community in favor of law-breakers and 
against the law, we will not speak of that, though one 
would have thought it w^orthy of consideration by those 
who claimed a monopoly of " high moral ideas." 

One of these futile and vexatious measures was the 
tax and tariff bill of 1875, the true character of which, 
and indeed of the most of this crotchety and tentative 
legislation, was well shown by Mr. Bayard in his com- 
ments upon it : 



244 ■ LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

"It is simply a revenue bill, and 1 liave but this com- 
ment to make upon it : that, in accordance with almost 
every bill which has been framed under the present ad- 
ministration and those which preceded it for twelve or 
fifteen years past, it has not been so much a bill to pro- 
vide revenue to the treasury as it has been to create* un- 
equal burdens and to protect favored and special classes. 
... I trust this is the last bill which under tlie false 
pretense of raising revenue is only a bill to continue that 
uneqpial system of raising taxes which shall bring little 
revenue compared with the tax and cost to the public, 
while benelit flows to favored and special classes. . . . 

" "When will senators learn that an over-stringent law 
defeats itself ? Laws to be successful must be reasona- 
ble ; they must be proportioned to the power of the gov- 
ernment to collect without that great excess of inquisi- 
torial power and of annoyance to those who are to be 
subjected to the tax. Besides, it seeaas to me that in this 
matter of taxing distilled spirits there runs that fine vein 
of morality combined with many views which seems to 
me so false and so absurd. I do not object to the system, 
for I think it a true one, of levying your tax upon lead- 
ing articles, and allowing the tax to rest there until by 
its stability it shall extend itself over all those who con- 
sume, and thereby produce equality of taxation ; but 
many are voting this high tax upon whiskey, as it is 
termed, for the purpose of inflicting a high moral pun- 
ishment at the same time that you exact large sums 
of money. Such a system of mingling morals and poli- 
tics is absurd and unsound. It is property which you 
are taxing, and you ought to view it solely in a com- 
mercial sense if you wish to treat it with reason and I 
justice." 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 245 

Mi\ Bayard's sound, business-like way of looking at 
questions of this sort, to wliicli wc have already adverted, 
is well shown again in his remarks on the reduction of 
the tax on tobacco (February 17, 1879) : 

" I have sometimes thought, in the last ten years of 
my life, that there runs through many of our laws a fine 
spirit of moral instruction designed to punish whatever 
of innnorality may lurk in the personal habits of men, 
to give them a fine lesson, and at the same time to extort 
from them heavy pecuniary tribute. I do not believe 
that legislation should be a matter of sentiment ; but I 
think it should be enacted with reference to the charac- 
ters, the habits, the capacities, the prejudices of the popu- 
lation over whom it is to be extended, I have witnessed 
in our tariff laws, and in their administration, such a tone 
of reprobation and rebuke toward the merchants from 
whose commerce we were drawing mighty revenues as 
was scarcely consistent with the dignity of a government 
addressing a respectable and responsible body of its own 
citizens. And so, in all their multifarious laws and recu- 
lations in regard to the imposition and collection of taxes 
upon tobacco and distilled spirits, a great deal of the 
same feeling seems to have prevailed. The citizen who 
is to pay the tax seems scarcely regarded as a co-operative 
integer in his country's government, but rather as one 
who intends dishonesty from the start, and who is not 
sim^^ly called upon to pay tribute as one of the class se- 
lected for taxation, but who is to perform his duty to the 
government under a certain sentiment of reprobation and 
puritanic feeling which persists in giving him high moral 
lessons, while at the same time it takes the largest sum of 
money possible out of his pocket. 

" I believe in laying wise taxes, adjusting them, as far 



246 LIFE OF TnOMAS F. BAYARD. 

as justice to all classes will permit, upon such commodities 
as universal use, universal production, will lead you to 
believe will bring you the greatest revenue with the least 
individual or class oppression and discomfort ; and every- 
where and in every way that I could secure the co-opera- 
tion of the tax-payer in the full payment of the revenue, 
I should feel that I was achieving a great success in the 
painful art of taxation." 

In the sentence we have just quoted there is, perhaps, 
a more statesmanlike statement of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of sound and reasonable revenue taxation than can 
be found anywhere else in as few words. To lay the 
tax upon " articles of imiversal use and universal produc- 
tion," so that the burden may, as quickly as possible, be 
distributed as equally as possible — there is the sound po- 
litical economy of the subject. To obtain the willing 
co-operation of the tax-payer — there are the true ethics of 
the subject. 

The practice that has prevailed has been a compound 
of the " Donnybrook fair" principle—" wherever you see 
a tiling, tax it," regardless whether it can bear taxation, 
or will yield any revenue worth the trouble — and of a 
mixture of short-sighted selfishness and silly sentimen- 
tality, that selected some articles for pampering, and 
others for vindictive prosecution, the result of which, as 
was said before, was to combine the greatest amount of 
inequality, oppression, and irritation, the strongest temp- 
tation to break the law, and the greatest difficulty in 
enforcing it, with the least proportionate gain to the 
revenue.* 

* At the time wlien the preposterous Morrill tariff, with its encyclopredic 
lists of dutiable articles, was crippling business here, the whole customs 
revenue of Great Britain and Ireland was raised on nine commodities, and 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 24:7 

But, while dealing with practical questions in a prac- 
tical way, he did not ignore that broader philosophy which 
should form the foundation of all sound political economy. 
To check extravagance, to spend with wisdom, to distri- 
bute equally the public burdens, these were the applica- 
tions of a science, the basis of which he has given in an 
address to a body of young men just entering into active 
life.* After adverting to the war and its result, he con- 
tinues : 

" When I refer to the past, it is not idly to mourn over 
it and the changes wrought in so much we held in close 
affection and just value, but here to aver my belief that, 
whatever may be the present condition of our govern- 
ment, its forces and tendencies, we of this day have our 
only hope for that happiness, individual and national, that 
security to person and property, that social, political, and 
religious freedom which were the objects for which our 
forefathers instituted this government, in the revival and 
constant exercise of the simple virtues practiced by the 
founders of the republic, which the growth of wealth and 
luxury, and a period of civil war, with its necessary accom- 
paniment of public demoralization, have done so much to 
lessen in public as well as private use. 

" The men of our first Eevolution were truthful, honest, 
constant, frugal, industrious, and brave. Adversity had 
been their nm-se, and these virtues were the rugged texts 
of her instruction. When they came to lay the founda- 
tions of a government, they naturally based their organic 
laws on these principles, so that they became its motive 
power, the inspiring sentiment of the entire scheme. 

the entire list, with the scale of duties and accruing revenue, was printed on 
a card the size of an ordinary visiting-card. 

"■ Speech before the Literary Societies of the University of Virginia, July 
2, 1873. 



248 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

" Througliout the written charter of carefully enumer- 
ated and limited powers, with which they intrusted their 
othcial rulers and representatives, everywhere are to be 
found evidences of this. It was because they were pos- 
sessed of the virtues I have named that they founded the 
government they did. It was the natural result of such 
possession. The government was designed for a people 
like themselves ; it was totally unfit for a people unlike 
them. And we may be sure that attempts to engraft 
upon it a government having a different class of ideas 
and principles for its basis can be but the commencement 
of a career of loss and sorrow, with certain failure as the 
final result. 

" If the federal Constitution should have been so in- 
vaded and overthrown that it shall never again be restored 
in the beauty and beneficence in which the eyes of our 
■fathers beheld it, it has been because the virtues which 
gave it birth have fallen into disuse, and the hands and 
brains which have destroyed it have been those of men 
whose hatred was stronger than their love of justice, 
whose love of gain overcame their love of truth, and 
whose fear of local and temporary discontent overcame 
tlie courage necessary to enable them to stand by their 
duty." 

And after adverting to abuses such as we have already 
touched upon, and showing how fraud, falsehood, and the 
palliation of wrong-doing were corrupting the morals of 
pul)lic life, he lays his finger upon the very heart of the 
evil, and points out the remedy : 

" Properly considered, no one virtue is more absolutely 
and practically necessary in human society than simple 
truth, the essential basis of that good faith upon the pres- 
ervation of which the honor of men and of nations alone 



ECONOMY AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT. 249 

can Scafclj depend. Surely no social crime is more dan- 
gerous than a lie, and the man who utters it, or palters 
with the truth, should be considered a public enemy, un- 
worthy of any post of honor or profit. Simple truth is 
an essential, a prime necessity, in human intercourse. The 
safety of nations as well as of individuals requires its close 
observance. Truth in the historian, truth in the ruler and 
legislator, truth in the manifold affairs of men in public 
or private life — this is the keystone ; strike it from the 
arch, and the greatest edifice of man's toil and skill and 
ambition tumbles to certain and deserved rain. We need 
everywhere the man 'who speaketh the truth* in his 
heart, . . , Who sweareth to his own hurt and changeth 
not.' , . , 

" All public laws that lead to or tend in any way to 
the commission of falsehood should meet disapproval. 
Take, for instance, the whole system of political test 
oaths, the inventions of a dark, distant, and deluded pe- 
riod of government, unhaj^pily revived of late years in 
this country. Does any man doubt that they were pro- 
ductive only of weak and mean falsehood, and of the 
exclusion and injury of men whose conscience and per- 
sonal honor would have afforded the most certain and 
cheapest protection to the government that sought it? 
Slowly sensible of the demoralizing effects of arraying 
self-interest against truth, propositions were made at the 
last session of Congress for the abolition of the entire 
system of custom-house oaths, and the substitution of 
declarations made on honor. Experience had amply 
shown that custom-house oaths, under the present system 
of excessive tariff duties, were almost universally held, 
however solemn in their form, to have no binding effect, 
and to be of no protection to the government which ex- 



250 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

acted them. And I am warranted in saying tliat no j^ro- 
secution for sucli frequent perjury has yet been recorded. 
Might it not be suggested that men should not thus be 
tempted to commit wrong, and that wise rulers should so 
frame their laws as to make the inducements to deceive 
as slight as possible ? Wise recognition of and condes- 
cension to the frailties of humanity are surely important 
elements in legislative judgment." 

Happy would it have been for this country if its 
rulers and legislators of late years had heard and heeded 
in their youth such admonitions as these ; happier still if 
their counsels had been guided by such clear-sighted wis- 
dom, broad love of country, and simple integrity as were 
his who uttered them. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ELECTOKAL COMMISSION. 

The session of Congress from December, 1876, to 
March, 1877, was one of the most exciting and deeply 
important in the annals of our government. It was truly 
a " time that tried men's souls," as much as they were 
tried in 1776. It is to the steadfast moral courage of cer- 
tain of the Democratic leaders in the two Houses of Con- 
gress that the honor is due of preventing the United 
States from being converted from a government of laws 
into a government of force. 

Mr. Bayard was a conspicuous and important actor in 
those scenes. Certain ill-advised and unscrupulous per- 
sons have made the attempt to misstate history, mislead 
the j^ublic mind, and create unworthy prejudice by sug- 
gesting that in some way, not distinctly stated, the coun- 
sel and desires of Mr. Tilden were not heeded in creating 
the Electoral Commission, and that he and his more inti- 
mate friends were not in accord with the efforts which 
produced the law for it. The contrary is the fact. 

The history of the Electoral Commission has yet to be 
written, and the historian in the next generation who un- 
dertakes it will be embarrassed by the circumstance that 
a vital portion of the crude material for his narrative is 
in cipher. In the mean time, however, it is eminently 
due to Mr. Bayard that some of the facts bearing upon 



252 LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

Ilia part in that great drama should be set out in the pub- 
lic view. It is believed that a portion of these facts are 
not as well known as they should be, and that tliose which 
are known have been warj)ed, garbled, and distorted very 
much out of their actual semblance. 

Mr. Bayard cordially endorsed the nomination of Til- 
den and Hendricks, and threw himself into the canvass 
that ensued with an ardor which threatened seriously to 
impair his health. " I made a hole in my lungs in that 
campaign," he has been heard to say, " which it took me 
eighteen months to patch up." He spoke throughout the 
canvass, in a great many difTerent places, from the first 
ratification meeting in Philadelphia, at Horticultural Hall, 
to the last speeches in Baltimore and Princess Anne, 
Maryland, on the eve of election. - There is evidence that 
Mr. Tilden knew how to value and to appreciate such de- 
voted services. June 30, 1876, Mr. Bayard had tele- 
graphed to him from Washington as follows : " I take 
the first hour since my return from Mississippi to assure 
you that my fervent support will not be wanting to elect 
you to the presidency, where your services are so much 
needed by the American people," and Mr. Tilden replied 
at once and the same day : " Cordial thanks for your tele- 
gram. Toil already know you have my highest aiyijrecia- 
tion and full confidence.'''' 

The election took place duly on November 7, 1876. 
Tilden and Hendricks were elected by a majority of the 
])opiilar vote, and by a majority of all the electoral votes. 
Ihit the Republicans were in power at Washington, and 
they had Grant there intrenched. Chandler, chairman 

* To vast audiences in Brooklyn ami New York city, in Trenton and 
Newark, New Jersey ; in Chicago, Indianapolis, Tcrrc Uautc, and a dozen 
other places in Indiana. 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 253 

of the Republican committee, had " retm-ncd " llaycrf 
and Wheeler elected, and he would not suffer any one to 
go behind his returns. The Republicans determined to 
" hold the fort." They had all the machinery necessary 
to enable them to do it. They had tlie President and 
Cabinet, the Senate, the army and navy, and the treasury. 
They had 100,000 ofhce-holders at their beck and nod, so 
long as "hold fast" was the avowed policy. They had 
any number of " visiting statesmen," sensational ready- 
writers, and Eliza Pinkstons at their disposal. More 
than all, they owned, body and soul, the returning-boards 
in the disputed States, and Mr. Chandler felt confident of 
being able to dictate, from his head-quarters in Washing- 
ton, the operations of these notorious organizations for 
giving the semblance of legality to wholesale fraud. The 
" outrage mill " had still some grist left for grinding over, 
and then and there were American politics and the Amer- 
ican vocabulary enriched with the word " bulldozing." 

The Democrats blustered and threatened, but were in 
sad lack of guidance. The " literary bureau " in New 
York had ceased its labors with the day of election. The 
voice of command in Gramercy Park had sunk into a 
whisper. All the time that the Republicans were organ- 
izing, drilling, arranging, dominating, controlling the 
wires and the press, the Democratic leaders seemed to be 
doing nothing except more and more relaxing their grip. 
There was no organization, no defiance. The conscious- 
ness of a righteous cause seemed to give no strength, no 
backbone to its adherents. The bigness of the prize they 
had won appalled them, and they let it roll away out of 
their reach, as babies sometimes will do with their big 
apples. In all this time really nothing was done except 
to gather some conclusive evidence, which could not be 



254 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

used when it was needed, and is worthless now because of 
subsequent revelations. If anything was said, it was said 
in the language of cryptograms. The great Democratic 
party, winning its first success since 1856, stood dumb as 
a stock-fish while the prize was filched away. The paraly- 
sis at the top seemed to have invaded all its members. 
We remember but one production of that painful and 
astonishing interval which seemed to emanate from a 
Democratic source, and this was a reference book, gi\"ing 
an historical review of how Congresses in the past had 
been in the habit of counting the electoral vote. This 
excellent handy volume was published by the Appletons,* 
and it was whispered about that the publication had Mr. 
Tilden's sanction. 

In the midst of all this doubt and uncertainty. Con- 
gress met in December. The Democratic members in- 
stantly discovered that if they wanted guidance in such a 
dire emergency they would have to supply it themselves. 
They had elected a president, but they had missed to 
supply their party with a general. By this time even 
the whispers from New York had become inaudible. 

Yet something must be done, and done promptly. 
For the Democratic senators and representatives found 
that there was at Washington a party still in control and 
power, which was elaborately preparing to resist and 
overcome the outbreaks and disturbances which they 
hoped would be provoked by the uncertainties of the 
times. It is simply God's mercy to this republic that the 
railroad and labor riots of 18TY did not break out sooner 
and in connection with the unsettled presidential election 
of 1876. Had that happened, it is not likely there would 
be any third-term agitation to-day. We repeat it, Grant 

* Dut not until January, 1877. 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 255 

was prepared in 1876-'Y7 to meet and put down a " Demo- 
cratic rebellion " on account of the disputed succession, 
and he looked for such a state of affairs as would compel 
him to " hold over." The real question, in case of a non- 
settlement of the presidential controversy, in other words, 
was not between Tilden and Hayes, but between the re- 
public and Grant. 

Senators and representatives knew this state of affairs, 
and in both parties they dreaded results. There were 
plenty of peoj)le who favored the idea of Grant's holding 
over, the more especially as Hayes was understood (by 
those who maligned him to his political associates) to be 
a reformer. Mr. Bayard confesses that he and all his 
friends were filled with apprehension at what they saw 
and heard and knew. It was not the bluster of Chandler 
and his committee men which appalled them, nor tlie 
snuffles and whines of the visiting statesmen, nor the 
purse-panic of capitalists and money-lenders in the great 
cities. It was the silence, the secrecy, the thoroughness 
of the military preparations at the White House and in 
the departments. There was more than intimidation or 
necessary precaution in these. A battalion of artillery 
was called in from one point, but only the arrival of a sec- 
tion of a battery was announced. When a regiment came, 
only a company was announced. When a brigade was 
assembled, no more than a regiment was officially stated 
to be present. Before the day came for the meeting of 
the two houses in joint convention, more than haK the 
entire army of the United States was collected in Wash- 
ington. It was openly boasted that they were present 
here to do in the House of Representatives what they 
had already done in Louisiana, nor was the boast an idle 
one. 



25G I'^FE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

At least something must be done in such an emer- 
goney, since nothing could be gained, while everything 
might be lost, by drifting on a helmless way. It is a fal- 
lacy to say that nothing need have been done ; that the 
House of Eepresentatives had all the necessary powers, 
and could have proceeded to elect a president according 
to the forms of the Constitution. "What would really have 
happened would have been this : the Eepublican Senate 
and the Democratic House would have disagreed as soon 
as the vote of Florida came to be counted ; the Senate 
would have retired to its own chamber, and would have 
been followed there by the Eepublican members of the 
House, leaving the Hall of Eepresentatives to the Demo- 
cratic " rump " and the " Confederate brigadiers." Til- 
den and Hayes would both have been declared president, 
and we should have had a disputed and divided succession, 
with the purse and the sword and the bench and all the 
machinery and property of government in the hands 
of the usurper. What then ? Would Mr. Tilden have 
resisted, and demanded and asserted his rights ? The re- 
sult would have been civil war. If he had not done so 
(and few who know Mr. Tilden believe that he would), 
we should stand pretty much where we now are, except 
that Mr. Hayes, while practically president, would have 
no color of valid title to his office. Such a situation would 
unquestionably have intensified, in a very serious degree, 
the condition of affairs during the railroad riots of 18TY. 
The very contemplation of such a situation, however, was 
intolerable to every patriotic member of Congress, and a 
means of preventing it was sought with zeal and earnest- 
ness. The result of these endeavors was the Electoral 
Commission. The deliberations of that body did not, in- 
deed, secure the presidency to the man who was really 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 257 

elected, but tliey secured tlie peace and dignity of the re- 
public, and vindicated, in a signal manner, the capacity 
of the American people for self-government under the 
most trying circumstances. 

It is to be added that the system for counting the 
electoral votes was so imperfect, and led to so many grave 
and perilous difficulties in 1865 and 1873, that Repub- 
licans and Democrats united in seeing the necessity for 
improvements; the difficulty being that nobody's plan 
for amendment was quite acceptable, each side seeming 
to mistrust the other, and to suspect a " Trojan horse " in 
propositions emanating from it. In this way, while many 
bills for counting the electoral vote were introduced into 
Senate and House, none succeeded in getting the ap- 
proval of a majority. The adjustment of this delicate 
matter had been advocated by Senator Morton, of Indiana, 
during several sessions, but without success. He had 
secured the reference of the subject to a special commit- 
tee, of which he was chairman, but even the committee 
would not agree as to what they should recommend. Mr. 
Bayard was fully alive to the importance of taking steps 
to obtain relief, and on January 19, 1876, he introduced 
a resolution in the following words : 

" Eesolted hy the Senate {the House of Re^nesentative conciirring)^ 
That the Committee on Kules of the Senate and House of Eepre- 
sentatives be, and they are hereby, instructed to examine, and, after 
conference, to report, what amendments, if any, should be made in 
the present joint rules of the two houses; and also whether any, 
and what, legislation is expedient in regard to the matters considered 
in the present twenty-second joint rule." 

On the 25th of January, he endeavored to have it 
considered in the Senate, but was thwarted by the action 
of Frelinghuysen, Conkling, Hamlin, and Morton. In 



25 S LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

earnest language lie besought the Senate to adopt some 
plan by which the result of the coming presidential elec- 
tion should be honestly ascertained and faithfully accept- 
ed, lie said : 

" I will merely say that there is no time more favor- 
able for the discussion of this rule than the present. 
There has been no time for the last twelve years when 
the discussion of the subjects embraced by the twenty- 
second joint rule could be more favorably had than the 
present. There are few subjects of more critical interest 
to be settled rightfully than the matters embraced by 
that rule, and I think the sooner we bring it to the calm 
consideration of the Committee on Rules of the two 
houses, the better for us all, and the better for the coun- 
try. The longer this is delayed, the nearer we drift to 
one of those periodical contests under our form of gov- 
ernment ; and, the sooner we settle in a calm, high spirit 
these questions which may involve great differences of 
opinion and interest, the better for us all. 

" In view of the suggestion of the Senator from New 
Jersey, I shall not press the consideration of this resolu- 
tion in the absence of the Senator from Vermont, al- 
though my impression is quite distinct that the Senator 
from Vermont concurred in the resolution as I presented 
it. Tlie Senator from New York asked that it might lie 
over, and it was at his request continued. I meant to 
bring it up, and I shall bring it up again, when it is the 
pleasure of the Senate to consider it. I think it impor- 
tant that it should be settled as speedily as possible, if it 
can be. If the two houses can be brought to agreement 
on this subject with the present condition of party mat- 
ters between the two houses, I think it will be a guaran- 
tee" that the result will be satisfactory to the people of the 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 259 

country. Kot only is it important to lis that the election 
should take place with all proper guards, but the great 
matter is that, after it is over, all the people should come 
together as one people to support whoever may be the 
persons chosen by the majority." 

But Mr. Bayard was unassisted by his own side of the 
Senate, and obstructed by the other, and no action was 
ever taken on his proposition. The Republican majority 
were unwilling to commit themselves to any but their 
own partisan plans. 

But time passed ; the election had been held ; and now 
Congress felt compelled to do something, face to face as 
they were with a vital issue that admitted of no delay. 
A joint committee of seven senators and seven represen- 
tatives was proposed, with instructions to prepare without 
delay such a measure, either legislative or constitutional, 
as might be best calculated to count the vote authorita- 
tively, and declare the result by a tribunal whose decision 
would be generally accepted as final. The proposition 
came from the House ; it was accepted by the Senate, the 
joint committee was appointed; it matured and reported 
the bill for counting the vote by the Electoral Commis- 
sion. The bill was accepted by both houses by an over- 
whelming majority, and the machinery was thus at last pro- 
vided for escaping a revolution or a disputed succession. 

During the preparation of the measure the sessions of 
the committee were secret, and the plans of the House 
committee and those of the Senate committee had been 
separately matured. The joint committee then met for 
the first time, and the two communicated to each other 
the several plans they had respectively prepared. From 
the mingled features of these plans the Electoral Commis- 
sion bill was framed. 
12 



2G0 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

Mr. Hewitt, of New York city, was a member of the 
committee, and gave Mr. Tilden instant and full informa- 
tion of the proposed plan of the joint committee, as he 
had previously of the action of the committee on the part 
of the House. Mr. Hewitt had been selected on Mr. Til- 
den's nomination as chairman of the National Democratic 
Committee, and had zealously conducted the political 
campaign under the personal supervision and advice of 
Mr. Tilden himself. Thus, throughout the whole pro- 
ceeding, Mr. Tilden's able and trusted lieutenant, known 
to be in his closest confidence, was in hearty co-operation 
with his Democratic associates and constant communica- 
tion with their chief. The report that accompanied the 
bill was signed by every one of the fourteen members, 
excepting Oliver P. Morton, who refused. Those mem- 
bers of the Senate and House who were known to hold the 
closest and most confidential relations to Mr. Tilden were 
open and earnest advocates of the measure at every stage. 
In the House, conspicuous were David Dudley Field and 
Hewitt, of New York ; Randall, of Pennsylvania ; Spring- 
er, of Illinois ; Waterson, of Kentucky ; and Money, of 
Mississippi. In the Senate, Barnum, of Connecticut, and 
Kernan, of New York (who subsequently became a mem- 
ber of the Electoral Commission). The same spirit which 
had allowed the minority party in each house to elect its 
representatives in the joint committee prevailed in both 
houses in election of members of the Electoral Commis- 
sion. But how marked the contrast between the action 
of the two parties ! The Democrats, in a spirit of good 
faith, selected known friends of the measure to carry 
it into execution ; but tlie Pepublicans placed Morton 
and Garfield upon the Commission, knowing they had 
bitterly denounced and opposed the passage of the act; 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 261 

had denied in debate its constitutional warrant, and yet 
took an oath to execute it. By such selections the honest 
execution of the law was prevented by the Republican 
majority in the Senate, and the honorable settlement it 
had been ordained to procure was shamefully defeated. 
It is also true that, in December, 1876, before the com- 
mittee had taken any action, Mr. Bayard, in compliance 
with the request of Mr. Tilden, had gone to New York, 
to receive his counsel and instruction. He spent an 
entire evening with Mr. Tilden, by appointment, at the 
house of a mutual friend, and the following day, accom- 
panied by Mr. Lamar, of Mississippi, went to again see 
Mr. Tilden at his house, and held an interview, lasting 
four hours, in the effort to ascertain his views and wishes, 
or, as Mr. Bayard himself once phrased it, " to sit at his 
feet and gather his instruction.''^ Mr. Tilden, however, 
gave no intimation whatever of his intentions, nor any 
light upon the grave subjects under consideration. The 
compilation of congressional precedent, then in course of 
preparation by Mr. Bigelow, was exhibited and referred 
to, but no plan of action was indicated, and the two gen- 
tlemen returned to "Washington uninformed and unin- 
stracted by their party chieftain of his intended action, 
and from that time forth were left to their own resources 
and responsibilities, to meet the grave emergency whose 
shadow covered the whole land. 

Mr. Bayard did not intend this country should be 
" Mexicanized," but addressed all his energies to the 
preparation of a remedy in the form of law, which should 
vindicate the results of popular election, preserve the 
faith of our people in their government, and keep the 
country from falling into such a condition of confusion 
as would give a pretext to the military conspirators to 



I 



2C2 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

seize tlie reins of power, and leave ns not a vestige of 
civil and constitntional liberty. The electoral bill passed 
the Senate on Jannary 24, 1877, by a vote of 47 to 17. 
Every Democrat in the Senate voted for the measure, 
with a single exceptioii, in which a want of constitutional 
power was stated as the reason. In opposition were 
found the crew of carpet-baggers — Dorsey, Clayton, Pat- 
terson, Bruce, Hamilton, Conover, and West — combining 
with Morton, Sargent, and Blaine — the most " stalwart " 
of the radicals. It passed the House of RejDresentatives, 
then strongly Democratic, by a vote of 191 to 86, and in 
this minority were found but 18 Democratic votes.* 

Mr. Hendricks, the Vice-President elect, had at once, 
upon the bill being reported, made public expression of 
his gratification and of his warm approval of the measure. 

The report accompanying the bill, which was not 
drawn by Mr. Bayard, though it was amended in some 
details at his suggestion, embodied a very strong argument 
for its adoption. It said : 

" We have applied the utmost practicable study and 
deliberation to the subject, and believe that the bill now 
reported is the best attainable disposition of the difficult 
problems and disputed theories arising out of the late 
election. It must be obvious to every person conversant 
with the history of the country, and with the formation 
and interpretation of the Constitution, that a wide diver- 
sity of views and oj^inions touching the subject, not wholly 
coincident with tlie bias or wishes of the members of po- 
litical parties, would naturally exist. We have in this 
state of things chosen, therefore, not to deal with abstract 
questions, save so far as they arc necessarily involved in 

* In this majority were included all the Democratic inciubcrs well 
known as friends to Mr. Tilden and his election. 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 263 

the legislation proposed. It is, of course, plain that the 
report of the bill implies that in our opinion legislation 
may be had on the subject in accordance with the Con- 
stitution, but we think that the law proposed is inconsis- 
tent with few of the principal theories upon the subject. 
The Constitution requires that the electoral votes shall be 
counted on a particular occasion. All will agree that the 
votes named in the Constitution are the constitutional 
votes of the States, and not other ; and, when tliej have 
been found and identified, there is nothing left to be dis- 
puted or decided : all the rest is the mere clerical work of 
summing up the numbers, wdiich being done, the Con- 
stitution itself declares the consequence. 

" This bill, then, is only directed to ascertaining, for 
the purpose and in aid of the counting, what are the con- 
stitutional votes of the respective States ; and, whatever 
jurisdiction exists for such purpose, the bill only regulates 
the method of exercising it. The Constitution, our great 
instrument and security for liberty and order, speaks in 
the amplest language for all such cases, in whatever aspect 
they may be presented. It declares that the Congress 
sliall have power ' to make all laws which shall be neces- 
sary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing 
powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution 
in the government of the United States or in any depart- 
ment or officer thereof.' The committee therefore think 
that the law proposed can not be justly assailed as uncon- 
stitutional by any one, and for this reason we think it un- 
necessary, whatever may be our individual views, to dis- 
cuss any of the theories referred to. Our fidelity to the 
Constitution is observed when we find that the law we 
recommend is consistent with that instrument. 

" The matter, then, being a proper subject for legisla- 



2G4: LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

tion, the fitness of tlie means proposed becomes the next 
subject for consideration. Upon this we beg leave to 
submit a few brief observations. 

'• In all just governments, both public and private 
rights must be defined and determined by the law. This 
is essential to the very idea of such a government, and is 
the characteristic distinction between free and despotic 
systems. However important it may be, whether one 
citizen or another shall be the Chief Magistrate for a pre- 
scribed period, upon just theories of civil institutions, it 
is of far greater moment that the will of the people, law- 
fully expressed in the choice of that officer, shall be as- 
certained and carried into effect in a lawful way. It is 
true that in every operation of a government of laws, 
from the most trivial to the most important, there will 
always be the possibility that the result reached will not 
be the true one. The executive officer may not wisely 
perform his duty, the courts n:;ay not truly declare the 
law, and the legislative body may not enact the best laws ; 
but, in either case, to resist the act of the executive, the 
courts, or the legislature, acting constitutionally and law- 
fully within their sphere, would be to set up anarchy in 
the place of government. We think, then, that to provide 
a clear and lawful means of performing a great and neces- 
sary function of government, in a time of much public 
dispute, is of far greater importance than the particular 
advantage that any man or party may in the course of 
events possibly obtain. But we have still endeavored to 
provide such lawful agencies of decision in the present 
case as shall be the most fair and impartial possible under 
the circumstances. Each of the branches of the legisla- 
ture and the judiciary is represented in the tribunal in 
equal proportions. The composition of the judicial paii; 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 2G5 

of the Commission looks to a selection from dillerent parts 
of the republic, while it is thought to be free from any 
preponderance of supposable bias ; and the addition of 
the necessary constituent part of the whole Commission, 
in order to obtain an uneven number, is left to an agency 
the farthest removed from prejudice of any existing at- 
tainable one. If would be difficult, if not impossible, we 
think, to establish a tribunal that could be less the sub- 
ject of party criticism than such a one. The principle of 
its constitution is so absolutely fair that we are unable to 
perceive how the most extreme partisan can assail it, un- 
less he prefers to embark his wishes upon the stormy sea 
of unregulated procedure, hot disputes, and dangerous 
results, that can neither be measured nor defined, rather 
than upon the fixed and regular course of law that in- 
sures peace and the order of society, whatever party may 
be disappointed in its hopes." 

"When this bill came up for discussion in the Senate, 
Mr. Bayard advocated it in one of his best and most ear- 
nest speeches, delivered Wednesday, January 24, 1877. 
He said : " There is for every man in a matter of such 
importance his own measure of responsibility, and that 
measure I desire to assume. . . . The period of advo- 
cacy of either candidate has passed, and the time for 
judgment has almost come. How shall we who propose 
to make laws for othei's do better than to exhibit our own 
reverence for law, and set the example here of subordina- 
tion to the spirit of law?" After a very full and lucid 
discussion of the bill, Mr. Bayard concluded with the fol- 
lowing peroration, one of the finest which ever came 
even from his lips : 

" Mr. President, in the course of my duty here as a 
representative of the rights of others, as a chosen and 



2G6 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

sworn public servant, I feel that I have no right to give 
my individual wishes, prejudices, interests, undue influ- 
ence over my public action. To do so would be to com- 
mit a breach of trust in the powers confided to me. It 
is true I was chosen a senator by a majority only, but not 
for a majority only. I was chosen hy a party, but not 
for a party, I represent all the good people of the State 
which has sent me here. In my ofiice as a senator I recog- 
nize no claim upon my action in the name and for the 
sake of party. The oath I have taken is to support the 
Constitution of my country's government, not the fiat of 
any political organization, even could its will be ascer- 
tained. In sessions preceding the present I have adverted 
to the difficulty attending the settlement of this great 
question, and have urgently besought action in advance 
at a time when the measure adopted could not serve to 
predicate its results to either party. My failure then 
gave me great uneasiness, and filled me with anxiety; 
and yet I can now comprehend the wisdom concealed in 
my disappointment, for in the very emergency of this 
hour, in the shadow of the danger that has drawn so nigh 
to us, has been begotten in the hearts of American sena- 
tors and representatives and the American people a spirit 
worthy of the occasion — born to meet these difficulties, to 
cope with them, and, God willing, to coiiquer them. 

" Animated by this spirit, the partisan is enlarged into 
the patriot. Before it the lines of party sink into hazy 
obscurity ; and the horizon which bounds our view reaches 
on every side to the uttermost verge of the great repub- 
lic. It is a spirit that exalts humanity, and, imbued with 
it, the souls of men soar into the pure air of unselfish de- 
votion to the public welfare. It lighted with a smile the 
cheek of Curtius as he rode into the gulf ; it guided the 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 207 

hand of Aristides as he sadly wrote upon the shell the 
sentence of his own banishment ; it dwelt in the frozen 
earthworks of Yalley Forge ; and from time to time it 
has been an inmate of these halls of legislation. I believe 
it is here to-day, and that the present measure was bom 
nnder its influence." 

Mr. Bayard's remarks in the course of the deliberations 
of the tribunal show that, no matter what others felt, he 
considered himself a judge upon a very supreme bench. 
We happen to know something about Mr. Bayard's con- 
ception of the duties of a judge. In 1876, at a meeting 
of the bar of Wilmington, he was called on to speak of 
the death of Chief Justice Edward W, Gilpin, of Dela- 
■ware. "The profession of the law," said Mr. Bayard on 
that occasion, " is elevating ; its business is to mete out 
justice between man and man. It requires a delicate and 
sensitive honor. The administration of justice should be 
controlled by upright men, having a high sense of con- 
scientious responsibility, always recognizing fairness and 
fair play as the jewel of our profession. The law is 
grounded upon truth, and the lawyer is the professor of 
that tnith. In it he is bound to attain his right position. 
Favor can not make or break him, or keep him down. 
The position of judge requires sound sense and sound 
morality ; both are essential," 

It was in this spirit that Mr. Bayard went to his work 
on the Electoral Commission. In speaking of the Florida 
case, he said : " I can only say that while I feel a just and 
natural distrust in my powers to deal competently with 
such issues, yet I am at least conscious that I approach 
the duties imposed upon me by the oaths I have taken, 
both as a senator of the United States and a member of 
this Commission, in a spirit deeply solicitous to act worthi- 



268 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

ly in mj place." This lie did. In the course of the de- 
bates on the South Carolina case, the effort was made by 
Senator Frelinghuysen to accuse Mr. Bayard of inconsis- 
tency by contrasting his line of argument with his speech 
on Morton's bill for counting the electoral vote made in 
the Senate, February 25, 1875. "I am very glad," Mr. 
Bayard retorted, " that this extract from my former 
speech has been thus brought to my attention, because I 
am aware that it has been furnished before now to mem- 
bers of this Commission, although I will not suggest that 
the object in bringing it now to my notice is to impale 
me upon a supposed inconsistency between my views as 
expressed in 1875 and now. To the doctrine, however, 
contained in these remarks I can only give my renewed 
approval and assent, although I must frankly admit that 
within the two years whiah have elapsed I have had a 
better opportunity for the study and attention of this 
subject which had been denied me then, and which has 
given to my mind information and light not obtained be- 
fore. I trust the time will never come when I shall cling 
obstinately to an error which can only grow into a wrong 
by becoming willful, nor do I believe that I shall be 
found to lack the courage to retract an oi^inion when I 
am convinced that it is erroneous." 

In regard, however, to the subject matter of the issue 
attempted to be made, his mind was perfectly clear. 
" Such a proposition as was stated by me," he said, " in 
the debate referred to, was applicable -only to the ad- 
mitted election of a State. The presence of fraud and its 
effect in qualifying every proposition was not then con- 
sidered. The most solemn judgments and decrees of 
courts, pardons by kings and rulers, every treaty or 
compact between nations or individuals, alike lose every 



THE ELECTORAL COMMLSSION. 269 

quality of obligation when tonclicd by fraud. I know of 
no human contract more irrevocable and binding npon 
the parties than that of Christian marriage, in which civil 
and religious obligation combine to secure its perform- 
ance. The sanction under which marriage is entered 
into is the most solemn known to civilized men ; yet who 
ever denied that the tie could be and ought to be dissolved 
upon proof of fraud by one of the parties in obtaining 
the marriage? Fraud is a universal solvent^ and de- 
stroys whatever it toueJics, and it ought to he hunted down 
and crushed tohenever possible, in order to protect human 
society. Every proposition as to legal or moral obliga- 
tion must be considered as made in the absence of fraud, 
because fraud admitted as an element displaces all the 
reasoning which guides men in the ordinary conduct of 
life or in the administration of human laws and justice." 
This admirable doctrine did not meet with as much 
deference from the tribunal as they would probably pay 
to it now if their work was to do over again, and they 
were aware of the condemnation with which their per- 
formance has been met. In discussing the case of Loui- 
siana, Mr. Bayard showed that he was aware of the 
verdict which the people would pronounce should the 
tribunal decline to meet the real equities of the case 
before them. " I have felt very deeply," he said, " the 
necessity of not only deciding this case according to law 
and justice, but also of satisfying the moral sense of our 
fellow countrymen. Montesquieu has told us that, as 
honor is of vital essence to a monarchy, so is morality to 
a republic. I am perfectly aware of the real condition of 
the State of Louisiana. I am aware that what they are 
pleased to term ' the rights of the State of Louisiana ' 
have been most loudly proclaimed, and sought to be pro- 



270 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

tected in argument before this Commission, against the 
slightest invasion, by many who view with complacency 
her government and her people to-day in absolute subjec- 
tion to the army of the United States and its official head. 
I recognize fully the abnormal condition of affairs that 
grew out of and has succeeded a period of civil war and 
widespread revolution. I have had no object so near to 
my heart, and none which has drawn from me more of 
my energies, than the restoration of all parts and sections 
of this country to their former harmonious and normal 
relations to each other and to their common government. 
I can not shut my eyes to the fact that the disorder and 
crime of all grades which mark the history of the last few 
years in Louisiana, and yet which I believe have been 
shockingly and shamelessly exaggerated for political pur- 
poses, have been chiefly, almost wholly, the result of the 
destruction of local self-government in that State by the 
constant interference of federal power, invariably in favor 
of that one of the political parties of that State whose 
interest it has thus been made to produce disorder in 
order to procure that armed assistance without the aid of 
which it would long since have disappeared. The eyes of 
the American people must not be closed to the fact that 
if the voting material of a community is corruptible, it 
will be corrupted ; if it is purchasable, it will be bought ; 
if ignorant, it will be deceived ; and, if timid, it will be 
intimidated. If elections are put up at auction by placing 
their control in vile hands, whom will you blame ? Those 
who have created such an order of things ; surely not 
those who seek to abolish it. On the one hand, you see 
]iroperty seeking protection from i)lunder in the garb of 
law, and on the other, plunderers in the garb of law offer- 
ing to sell their official powers ; and thus property seeks 



THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 271 

to buy immunity from plunder by bribing men in office, 
or, impoverished and despairing, strikes down the robbers 
with fierce blow." 

The history of the Electoral Commission, so far as 
Mr. Bayard's connection with it is concerned, has been 
presented here frankly and freely. He is quite willing to 
be judged by it and upon it before the American people. 
He can hardly lose in their esteem for having not only 
acted uprightly himself, but assuming, in the essential 
nobility of his nature, that other men would be actuated 
by the same motives as those w^hich compelled him to do 
what he did. 

His feelings are well portrayed in his own language, 
when the decision of the tribunal in the case of Louisiana 
was ratified by the Senate. He then said : 

" Mr. President, as a member of the Electoral Com- 
mission, I have given all that I could give of earnest, pa- 
tient, steady labor and devotion to secure the just execu- 
tion of the law under which I was appointed. I could 
not now, even if I would, repeat here the arguments made 
bv me during the consultations of the Commission in op- 
position to the result arrived at by eight of my associates. 
Hereafter, those debates may be given to the public. My 
labors and my efforts have been crowned only by failure. 
Deep, indeed, is my sorrow, and poignant my disappoint- 
ment. I mourn my failure for my country's sake ; for it 
seems to me that not only does this decision of these eight 
members destroy and level in the dust the essential safe- 
guards of the Constitution, intended to surround and pro- 
tect the election of the Chief Magistrate of this Union, 
but it announces to the people of this land that truth and 
justice, honesty and morality, are no longer the essential 
bases of their political power." 



272 LIl^'E OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

"We submit the case, without further argument, to the 
public, who are judge and jury in such matters. But, no 
matter what their verdict, it will not affect Mr. Bayard's 
consciousness of having acted not only rightly, but in a 
spirit of exalted patriotism in everything connected with 
this period of difficulty and danger. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 

ME. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 

On Saturday, Marcli 20, 1875, :Mr. Bayard delivered 
one of his longest, most elaborate, and most effective 
speeches in the Senate, against executive interference 
with the government of the State of Louisiana. The 
occasion was momentous, and Mr, Bayard felt its full 
force. A resolution had been introduced by Grant's sui> 
porters approving his illegal invasion of Louisiana. It 
was a caucus measure, and the Eepublican senators, with 
some exceptions, supported it solidly and stohdly. It 
was brought in at an extra session of the Senate, osten- 
sibly convened for other and executive business. It was 
an attempt to '' whitewash," to slaver over a bold and 
glaring usurpation of power, dangerous, if justified, to 
our institutions, and to the perpetrator, if condemned. 
In France or Mexico a military commander who had ven- 
tured so far would have been compelled to resort to a 
corip (Tetat in order to save his head. The resolution 
was both unwarranted and unprecedented ; not to oppose 
it was to accept Grant as an " authorized interferer and 
ao-itator in the affairs of the States, and constitution 
maker for all the States." 

Every feeling of Mr. Bayard's, all his convictions, 
bristled against any such conclusion, which seemed to 
him to imply the definitive and final winding up of con- 



274 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

stitutional government in this country, and he spoke 
against the fact and spirit of the whole proposition with 
intense force and earnestness. His argument was pro- 
found and conclusive, but the tincture of strong and deep 
feeling which pervaded it was unusual, even for so ear- 
nest and positive a man as he. In his peroration to this 
speech there are frank declarations in regard to liimself 
wliich we do not encounter elsewhere in any of his 
speeches, and which it would be impossible to elicit from 
so reserved and modest a public man in his calmer mo- 
ments. These golden words embody a confession which 
ought to be engraved in a conspicuous j^lace among the 
recorded speeches of American statesmen. They are the 
declaration of faith of a Senator of the United States in 
these turbulent, self-seeking, corrupt times. 

*'Mr. President," said Mr. Bayard, "in 1869 I came 
to the Senate of the United States, never having been a 
member of any public assembly prior to that time. My 
pursuits were congenial ; the reward obtained was suf- 
ficent to give me a pecuniary independence. Those from 
whom I drew my blood, whose name I bear, had been 
too long in public life not to have become poor ; and, if 
my personal interests had been consulted, I should have 
continued to seek those rewards that industry and fair 
intelligence will bring to any man in a profession for 
wliich he is at all adapted. I had bat one object, and 
that I believe I have steadily pursued. The country that 
I love had been rent by discord, and the hearts of its 
people had been alienated far, far from each other. I 
had no other object in coming here than to bring my fel- 
low countrymen into accord with each other, and I am 
not conscious since I came that a word has been uttered 
by me or a vote cast tinged with unfriendliness to any 



MR. BAYARD IX THE SENATE. 275 

portion of my country, North or South, or East or AVcst. 
And now, sir, if I lift my voice iu favor of a measure or 
in opposition, I have long ago been taught it will not be 
efficient in this assembly, but may be heard elsewhere, 
and even from me, if what comes is tiiith, there is a God 
of tnith who shall make it efficient in his own good 
time." 

These are words which should be i:)ondered carefully. 
They were uttered in a moment of intense feeling, with 
the utmost sincerity. They are exactly and literally truth- 
ful. They represent the standard by which the life of at 
least one public man has been regulated and guided 
throughout ; and how many of Mr. Bayard's fellows in 
the Senate could utter them as ingenuously ? 

Only the other day, in repelling the insinuation of 
Mr. Blaine, that Kellogg, of Louisiana, could not be un- 
seated because he was seated in pursuance of a bargain 
by which the Democrats gained a member, Mr. Bayard 
indignantly said that he would sooner have resigned his 
seat and abandoned his position as senator than consent 
to any such arrangement. This, in courtlier phrase, was 
the repetition of his declaration that, if he Avere left only 
the alternative of violating his conscience or retaining his 
honorable post, he could still " take my hat and go home." 
These things are quoted again in this place because they 
illustrate the character of Thomas Francis Bayard as a 
senator. They show that at the root of his consistency, 
which is too sincere, too vital, too much awake to living 
and contemporary issues and needs, to deserve the re- 
proachful epithet of Bourbonism, and at the root also of 
]iis intense individuality, which is distinctive and forceful 
enough to have enabled him to tower aloft in any station, 
there are the big, warm heart and the sane mind in the 



2 TO LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

sound body of an honest man of good proportions per- 
fectly and orderly developed. 

This character goes for its full worth in the Senate. 
Mr. Bayard is understood and appreciated there as in the 
outer world. Manj^ hate him, for there are mean men, 
supple knaves, and fawning hypocrites there as elsewhere, 
and Mr. Bayard's frank scorn of pretense, his ready re- 
sentment of misrepresentation, and quick detection and 
exposure of fraud in intent and in act, have pricked many 
a bubble reputation, and torn away the veils of many a 
job ; but those who do not love him still can not with- 
hold from him their respect. He has not many intimates, 
yet his relations with all are courteous and kindly. The 
admiration which his natural powers and robust, incisive 
thought command is supplemented by the instinctive 
deference accorded to his pure and blameless integrity of 
life, his sincere and devoted earnestness of purpose. He 
is impulsive, warm-hearted, ingenuous as a boy, and his 
reserve is not of manner, nor does it create any suspicion 
of ruse policy. A rapid, untiring talker, you can not be 
with him ten minutes without noticing his alert curiosity 
of intellect, the wide range of topics of deep modern 
interest and vital pui^port to which his thoughts are con- 
stantly directing themselves, the exact co-ordination of his 
ideas with logical forms and firm-rooted principles, and his 
versatility, richness and correctness of diction, which is 
more striking, because less severely pruned, in his con- 
versation than in his orations. You find him to be a 
simple-hearted, courteous gentleman, richly endowed 
with original thought and fine expression, robust in mind 
and body, straightforward, unaffected, earnest, a hearty 
and thoroughly modern American, in the fullest sjTuj^a- 
thy with democratic institutions and ideas — the very type 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 277 

and exemplar of a virile American liielcory in tlie victor 
of its maturing growth, strong, symmetrical, columnar, 
with its top toward the blue sky and its shaft unbending 
to wooing zephyr or to assailing storm. And, what you 
find Mr. Bayard to be in ten minutes, his associates in the 
Senate have known him to be for ten years. lie has 
ripened, but he has not changed. He has grown, but 
always from the same roots, always upward ! 

He is tall, with a large frame, square, broad shoulders, 
massive joints, long limbs, spare but not thin in flesh. 
His clean-shaven face looks younger than his iron-gray 
hair, and his calm, cool, expressive gray eyes have the 
mobility and firmness of youth. But the pent-house arch 
of heavy eyebrows above them — eyebrows of prodigious 
flexibility and an unusually wide arc of motion — is that 
of the man who has earned his seat in the house of the 
elders. Those eyebrows, the well-lined mouth, and large, 
strong nose, give to Mr. Bayard's face traits enough of 
decision and faculty for leadership and command. But 
the forehead, high and white, and the general effect of the 
countenance are to create the impression of the thinker 
in active life, the philosophic athlete, who docs not for- 
get the academy while doing his duties and winning lau- 
rels in the palaestra. Mr. Bayard dresses with the sim- 
plicity and good taste of a man of the world whose duties 
are social as well as political. In talking with him you 
perceive the outcome of his active energy of thought and 
earnestness of purpose in a slight nervousness of manner 
that comports agreeably with his flexible, sonorous voice, 
so clear in enunciation and so equable in volume. He 
twirls a watch-key, he twists and untwists a bit of pa- 
per, he emphasizes his remarks with a lead pencil in liis 
fingers, his mobile eyebrows rise and fall like a portcullis 



278 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD.- 

to a tower of strength ; finally, be leaves Lis seat ; he leans 
back, with his elbows upon a mantel or other piece of fur- 
niture, he sits astride another chair, his arms folded across 
its back, and, at last, when fully warmed up, he walks 
the room with long steps, his hands planted deep in his 
pockets, his chin raised, and his eyes now fixed upon some 
point above their level, now upon the carpet in deep 
concentration of thought, while the well-balanced sen- 
tences never cease to fiow out from the large, expressive 
mouth. 

Mr. Bayard's manner of discharging his duties as sen- 
ator reflects a good deal of his individuality and his idio- 
syncrasies. He works well and works hard, but he selects 
his work, and, except on particular occasions, confines 
himself to it. He is not perpetually on the qui vive for 
words and phrases, for something to suspect or to quirk 
and carp at, like the captious and sardonic Edmunds. He 
loves business better than the sound of his voice, and has 
not Thurman's untiring joy in fence, which leads that 
pugnacious senator not only to take up every challenge, 
but also to keep tossing his own gauntlet into the ring, 
as if ever spoiling for a fight. He does not envy Blaine's 
" bounce " nor his reputation as a " free lance," nor does 
he lie in wait, like Conkling, for chances to make " hits " 
such as will please the galleries. He attends to the du- 
ties of a senator, and is too much occupied with the solid 
part of these duties to have eitlier time or taste for their 
frippery and fribbles. 

There are two classes of senators : those who do real 
work, and those who do nothing, or simply pretend to 
work. Mr. Bayard is of the fonner class. But this 
class must again be subdivided into other two classes : 
those who work for the public service, and those who 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 2T9 

work for their own private ends or to serve their selfish 
ambitions. Mr. Bayard is of the first class again ; but 
these, in a still minuter classification, must be se]:)arated 
into the species of those who like details and routine 
M'ork, and those who prefer broader fields and larger and 
more general matter to deal with and accomplish — just as 
law^rs are case-lawyers and principle-lawyers, attorneys 
and counselors. Mr. Bayard's large, synthetic miud in- 
clines him naturally to consort with those who act upon 
the broader field, and survey the affairs of the Senate from 
the wider point of vision. lie does not neglect detail, 
but does not seek it. Pie is not a minimizer upon pre- 
ference. His is a constructive intellect, rather than an 
anatomizing one. He is a statesman with a mind better 
adapted to grouping together large things than for picking 
small ones to pieces. 

Mr. Bayard, like every other senator, is of course con- 
strained to select the subjects of legislation to which to 
give his particular attention from the wide and multifa- 
rious range of matters coming before the Senate, and his 
choice is characteristic. He is alert upon all questions bear- 
ing upon the powers of the Constitution and the interpre- 
tation of that instrument. All questions interest him 
which affect in any way the functions and the harmonious 
reciprocal action of the co-ordinate branches of govern- 
ment ; which involve the interpretation of, not so much 
this or that particular law, as the law itself, that corpus 
juris which rises towering, like a decorous and stately 
trunk, out of a bed of humus formed by the decay of 
particular leaves and branches from time immemorial. 
All questions are his which bear upon men's artificial re- 
lations in society — education, finance, political economy. 
His mind seems to have formed a distinct and definite 



280 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

conception of the ideal state tliat the founders of this 
republic had in view when they framed the Constitution 
as the ligament which should bind the States together in 
one harmonious whole, lie defends this conception by- 
holding himself armed cap-a-pie to resist every assault 
made upon it, and by toiling to repeal and lop away every 
excrescence which has grown upon it, and by trampling 
down every abortion that seeks to secure legitimacy by 
assuming its name and parodying its shape. The great 
leading and guiding principles of the tariff, the currency, 
the transportation service, the exchanges, he has mastered 
thoroughly and effectively ; he has gone into our foreign 
relations as far as they affect the national welfare and the 
national honor, and understands the principles of ajipro- 
priation and the details and the rationale of the " Book 
of Estimates " as well as any man. 

But omniscience is not Senator Bayard's foible. He 
does not air his opinions and his phrases ad cajptandum. 
He does not speak for buncombe. He does not speak at 
all unless the occasion demands it. Kor does he dabble 
a little here and dibble a little there day after day in 
the Senate, for the sake of saying something with each 
revolving sun. He does not feel called upon to support 
or object to every little bill that comes up from the com- 
mittees. If his mind is made up, he votes. If he doubts, 
he asks for information. If it is satisfactory, he acqui- 
esces. If he is not pleased, he states his objections sim- 
ply and courteously, and then has done. All this makes 
liini a pleasant senator to the whole body, and he never 
wrangles, never is assailed, unless, as we have shown, 
now and then in such cases as we h;ive already described. 
This habitual abstention, this simple way, conjoined with 
his earnestness and zeal, make Mr. Bayard a very strong and 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 281 

powerful debater, and give great weight to his arguments 
when he does choose to speak. He speaks not for the sake 
of talking, but to convince or to persuade, and he has often 
done both. He gives a striking instance of this power of 
his, in his Phi Beta Kappa oration, from which we have 
already made some quotations. He was illustrating his 
views of the force of "• unwritten laws." 

" I wish," he said, " I could bring to the minds of 
those who hear me now^ the spirit and meaning of a scene 
w^liich took place two or three years ago in one of the 
Southern States, whither I had gone to urge in friendly 
counsel the rejection of some false and dangerous sug- 
gestions in relation to our national finance, which were 
being introduced and recommended disingenuously and 
mischievously by political agents from other parts of the 
country. In the utter impoverishment of an agricultural 
people, suffering from a disorganized system of labor, 
prostration of industries, and an abolition of the only 
banking facilities upon wdiich they had been accustomed 
to rely, it is scarcely to be wondered that any promise of 
immediate relief, even the shallow and mocking cry of 
' More money,' should have been hailed with delight. It 
seemed to me then to be my duty to warn those fellow 
countrymen of ours, not only against the false economies 
of such doctrines, but to develop the danger to our na- 
tional credit, and the assault upon the government itself, 
that lay concealed within the propositions of renewed 
' inflation ' and ' convertible bonds.' " 

" One evening, after a pleasant dinner, and in all the 
freedom of social assembly, these topics were debated in a 
room filled with men of whom I was almost the only one 
who had not ' worn the gray ' from 1861 to 1865. 

" The discussion was vigorous — first, the economic, and. 



282 LIFE OF THOIIAS F. BAYARD. 

finally, tlie patriotic side of the question — and to my ap- 
peals on this point there was but a chilly response ; for it 
was in the days when military menace unhappily etill 
survived as a political force of administration in the affairs 
of some of the States, 

" Finally I said, ' Gentlemen, you are all very positive, 
and unwilling to accept my views, but I think I know 
how to control you, and, despite your strong language, 
can find means to obtain your submission.' 

" There was no response for a moment ; an atmosphere 
of resistance seemed to fill the room, and in the eyes 
around me shone a light of defiance. Then one of the 
party asked, with some severity of manner, ' Prav, sir, 
how do you propose to manage us so easily and compel 
our submission ? ' 

"7 said, ^ I would give you poiver to do rigJd, and 
then I woxdd defy you to hetray the trust. You your- 
sel/oes should he your conquerors^ 

" There were few men in that room who had not faced 
death in battle, and many bore the scars of conflict on 
their persons ; but, as I looked around, the angiy light of 
resentment had passed from their eyes, which were not 
unmoistened by a generous emotion, and I Avas left the 
victor on that field." 

That was true eloquence, satisfactory to even the most 
exigent definition of the great mysterious power. Mr. 
Bayard has often exercised this force in the Senate ; he 
always makes it felt on the stump. There, on great oc- 
casions (he never speaks on small ones), and in the open 
air, or in crowded assemblies, his attractive, judicious style 
warms up with a new glow ; his clear, sounding voice, 
always well and skillfully modulated, rings with a new 
fervor ; passion runs hand in hand with argument and 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 283 

reason, and the engrossing subject, the tremendons occa- 
sion, the inspiring presence, fill him with a lire that sets 
all his hearers aflame. His elaborate speeches are models 
of forensic skill and scholarly elocution, masculine, rapid, 
full of spirit, full of thought, illustrative of his captivat- 
ing manners and bright, incisive intellect. He always com- 
mands attention, and, as has been neatly said, " His most 
trifling utterances derive force and dignity from the ear- 
nestness and sincerity pervading them." His winning 
courtesy is most charming, and inspires him always with 
the happiest " hits," and his hearers with a personal 
warmth of feeling for him. Thus, in opening a cam- 
paign speech at Baltimore, in 1875, he said: "Even to- 
night a man whose heart is in the cause asked me why I 
came to Maryland when there was more debatable ground 
elsewhere. A soldier feels that he must go where he is 
ordered, but even to him there must come a choice of 
duties, and I could not resist the wish to address the peo- 
ple of Maryland. Elsewhere, I can ash and hope for a 
welcome ', here, I am sure of UP So, likewise, when he 
spoke at the Georgia State fair in the same year, he said, 
in acknowledging the welcome extended to him, that it 
had been so general that he could not believe that it was 
restrained by party ties. Burns, one of the sweetest of 
native poets, had said that, when called upon to enter the 
great, unknown future, he could wish no better reception 
than " just a Highland welcome." " I," said the Senator, 
" could wish nothing better, after passing an ordeal of 
any kind, than just a Georgia welcome." More pleasant 
still was his compliment to scholarship, when addressing 
the literary societies of the University of Virginia in 
1873. " Specialists," he said, " undoubtedly have their 
high uses, and far be it fi-om me to suggest a want of re- 
13 



284 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

spcct for their recondite and liiglily meritorious labors. 
But to such I do not presume to speak. How should I, 
heated and dusty, and not a little weary with the march 
and struggle of active life, address myself to such a pro- 
fessor as that German, celebrated for a life-long devotion 
to the Greek article, and who, when dying, whispered to 
a friend, ' My life has been a great mistake ! ' and, when 
asked what so troubled his last moments, feebly and feel- 
ingly replied, ' I have attempted too much ; I should 
have confined myself to the dative case.' " 

But this velvet covers steel, as we have shown in the 
way in which Mr. Bayard retorted upon Mr. Boutwell. 
In his earliest speech upon the currency question,* Mr. 
Bayard found it necessary to retaliate uj^on the late Yice- 
President Wilson for some of his flings at the Democratic 
party, and the rebuke was full of a very lofty scorn : 

" The other day," he said, " the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts took occasion, in the plenitude of his power, and 
from that elevation which the vast majority of his party 
in this body gave him, to throw taunts and slurs upon 
the Democratic party. His mouth was filled with phrases 
from Scripture. He stood knee-deep in his own praises 
of himself and his party. He referred us to the Bible for 
his commission, and announced himself one of the vice- 
gerents of Almighty God. There was a parable in that 
good book, with which he affected to have much famili- 
arity, which it seemed 'to me he had overlooked. It was 
that of a certain Pharisee who went up into the temple 
to make his prayer, and made such a one as we heard 
here a few days ago from the honorable Senator. The 
value of that prayer we have nothing less than divine 
estimate for. We know how it was compared with that 

* Funding Bill, March 7, 1870. 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 285 

other and humbler prayer that came from a man who had 
at least begun his Christianity by the necessary virtue of 
humility. 

" As I listened to the honorable Senator, there were 
some readings of my earlier days that came back to me, 
and among them I remember when one of the purest- 
minded and sweetest poets of our language had been 
similarly assailed for his alleged irreverence. It was 
Tom Hood, who dedicated an ode to one Mr. Wilson of 
his day, when, in his absence from his native country, he 
was assailed by that gentleman. There is a portion of 
it which, it strikes me, it might be well to recall, to 
see whether there can be found in it any application 
to our own time. Hood's ode to that Mr. Wilson ran as 
follows : 

* Shun pride, O Rea ! whatever sort beside 
You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride. 
A pride there is of rank, a pride of birth, 

A pride of learning, and a pride of purse, 
A London pride — in short, there be on earth 

A host of prides, some better and some worse. 
But of all prides since Lucifer's attaint 
The proudest swells a self -elected saint.' 

" The moral of the lecture wliich we received from that 
honorable Senator was that we should shun principles 
that led us into minorities ; that w^hen a man's political 
principles became unpopular, they should therefore be 
abandoned. He did not seem to understand how a man 
can go cheerfully into a minority rather than surrender 
his convictions of right. It has been the standing by 
those convictions that has brought the Democratic party 
into the minority in which they stand on this floor." 

In the course of Mr. Bayard's speech in the Louisiana 



286 rJFE OF THOMAS F. BAYAED. 

Returning Board" — fruitful theme ! he was rudely assailed 
by J. Rodman West, carpet-bag senator from that State. 
Mr. Bayard's rei^\y was brief : " Mr. President," said he, 
"one word. Perhaps the rules of order of this body 
might have been invoked when any Senator was charged 
with having by his precept and his example led to law- 
lessness and outrage. Such was the language in effect 
used by the Senator who has just taken his seat in regard 
to me. But I do not invoke the protection of the rules. It 
seems to me that it might have been wiser for him to have 
abstained from such remarks ; for on the one side stmuU 
the record of my debate in this chamber, and stands the 
record of my jpersonal life, and on the other side stands 
the charge. Heave them there to those who know bothP 

His scorn of action for buncombe, of neglecting ob- 
vious duty in the pursuit of cheap popularity, broke out 
finely when the amendment for abolishing the franking 
privilege was before the Senate.f In casting his vote 
against it, Mr. Bayard said : " I think it pretty certain 
that an equal amount of humbuggery has never connect- 
ed itself with any matter that ever came before Congress 
as is connected with this proposed abolition of the frank- 
ing privilege. It has been a joke pretty much for the 
last hour in the Senate, perhaps a serious one for the peo- 
ple of the country. In order that the Senate may take 
time to consider this matter a little more discreetly, I 
move that the Senate do now adjourn." 

His power of irony is capitally illustrated in his 
speech on the admission of Mississippi.:}: 

" Mr. President, yesterday I listened with much interest 
and pleasure to the very al>le and eloquent speech of the 

« Senate, December 15, IS'ZG. \ January 22, 1873. 

X Senate, February 15, 1870. 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 287 

lionorablc Senator from AVisconsin [Mr. Carpenter], and 
I regret that I liad not tlie opportunity of reading it be- 
fore I submitted these remarks to the Senate. It con- 
tained a very novel and ingenious method for dissolving 
the Union, by all the States, by means of conventions 
called for that purpose, going back into their territorial 
condition by what might be termed a universal solvent 
for melting away government. If the honorable Senator 
applies for a patent, I trust it will not be granted to him ; 
the invention is too fraught with danger. In other re- 
spects his speech struck me as containing nnich that was 
sound in doctrine, and to much that he said I would give 
a warm approval. But it is so now that a man can not 
make in this body a sound, constitutional argument with- 
out being instantly accused of tending to the Democratic 
party. This is the great bogie with whose name radical 
nurses frighten their unruly children into quiescence. The 
honorable Senator seemed disturbed in his mind — his pro- 
phetic mind — inasmuch as it was to his vision quite pos- 
sible that for the sins of the Eadical party Providence 
might permit the Democratic party again to come into 
power. This, to my mind, would be only another proof 
of Almighty beneficence, that after all the crimes of this 
Radical party, committed through so long a time and so 
often, such mercy should still be extended to them ; and, 
believing in that beneficent spirit, I do not doubt that we 
shall soon, and at no very distant day, see this precise ex- 
hibition indicated by the Senator of the forgiveness and 
care which a kind Providence extends to sinful men even 
in the midst of their wickedness." 

On another occasion, also, Mr. Bayard sent a shaft at 
Mr. Cai-penter, which must have found its way through 
the joints of that senator's harness. This was in his 



288 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

sj)eecli on Louisiana, on February 27, 1873, delivered 
about 6 A. M., toward the close of a stormy, continuous 
session, in which the conservative members had resorted 
to every parliamentary device to prevent what they knew 
to be an unconstitutional measure from being adopted. 
" No other senator," said Mr. Bayard, " than he who has 
just spent an entire day in demonstrating with force and 
brilliancy the utter falsity of a proposition, and ended his 
debate by recording his vote in its favor, could have been 
capable of the coolness, not to say effrontery or audacity, 
which has just been exhibited by the Senator from Wis- 
consin, in turning to Democratic members of this body, 
and seeking to place upon their shoulders the responsi- 
bility for the defeat of a measui'e which the Senator has 
just aided in loading down with an amendment, reciting 
facts proven by himself tp be false, and including results 
full of outrage, injustice, and usurpation of control in the 
affairs of the unhappy j)eople of Louisiana." 

Senator Logan was treated to a touch of this same 
sort in Mr. Bayard's speech * on the army bill : 

" Why, sir, what is the object and intent of such lan- 
guage as was used by the Senator from Illinois the other 
day when, in the midst of very audible denunciation, he 
warned us in his most tragic tones, and with the aid of 
Lis elaborated manuscript, in such words as these : 

*' ' Let Democrats of the South and their northern allies beware, 
the storm they are raising. The spirit of retaliation once raised, sir, 
will only be appeased by the most radical assurances of future quiet. 
If the disease upon our body-politic again requires the knife, they 
may rest assured the surgeon will " cut beyond the wound to make 
the cure complete." ' 

" This simile may be termed one of surgery ; to many 

* April 21, 1879. 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 280 

it will be more suggestive of butchery. I do not propose 
to exchange warnings, much less threats, either witli tlie 
Senator or his party ; but to my fellow countrymen I sug- 
gest that the knife, the use of which is to be restricted 
only ' by the most radical assurances of future quiet,' may 
indeed ' cut beyond the wound,' and reach the life of the 
patient." 

In this speech Mr. Bayard's quickness in repartee was 
illustrated at Mr. Blaine's expense. There had l)een a lit- 
tle " spat " between them, of the sort which Mr. Blaine 
is ever provoking, in regard to some "precedents" for 
military violence at the polls. The dialogue closed in 
this way : 

" Mr. Blaine. "Will the Senator yield to me a moment ? 

Mr. Bayakd. With pleasure. 

Mr. Blaine, In regard to the Senator's direction as 
to my wisdom, of course I will take care of that myself. 
The Senator began the interruption which I made by 
palpably misquoting what I had said. 

Mr. Bayaed. I accepted the Senator's correction. 

Mr. Blaine. Then the Senator comes back now, and 
gives me monition as to my lack of wisdom in making an 
assertion which he had put in my mouth, and which had 
no foundation whatever in fact. That is all to which I 
desire to call attention. 

Mr. Bayakd. The Senator does me injustice. His 
lack of wisdom I shall never attempt to supjylyP 

Mr. Bayard's indignant resentment against Sheridan's 
infamous " banditti " dispatch to Belknap, dated January 
5, 1875, burst forth in fhe Senate three days later, and 
the Senator's words should be pondered by those jaunty 
politicians of the day — the ephemera of a very transient 
sunshine — who would "go with a light heai't" to Grant 



290 LIFE OF TUOMAS F. BAYARD. 

and a third term. After quoting the dispatch, and Bel- 
knap's reply to it of the Yth,* Mr. Bayard said: "Ah, 
Mr. President, if there was the tone that under other ad- 
ministrations animated the executive of this country, he 
would never sign his name again as Lieutenant-General 
of the United States army. Is this the language of an 
American officer toward his fellow countrymen ? Why, 
sir, if he were in a hostile country among the sick and 
wretched Piegan Indians, had he been in the service of 
Mexico, there could not have been a more ruthless, a 
darker, or more bloody threat than is contained in the 
closing lines of this dispatch to the Secretary of War. 
This is language relating to the citizens of three States 
of this Union. Is it the language that is due from an 
officer of the army of the United States, wearing that 
honorable uniform, the protector, the guard, the glory of 
his people, without distinction of party ; or is it not the 
language of some captain of a band of janizaries, asking 
orders from an Oriental despot in regard to his ruthless 
extermination of those whom he may deem the foes of 
power? This man, educated with one of his text-books 
the Constitution of his country, asks that Congress shall 
pass an ex post facto law, making that a crime which was 
not a ci'ime at the time of the commission of the allcired 
offense, and creating new punishments to make the pen- 
alty still more severe. He asks for military commissions, 
in these times of peace, to tiy men neitlier in the land 
nor naval service of the United States. He asks for 
drum-head courts-martial to try citizens over whom there 
is no ijretense that tlic authority of the army or of the 

* " Your telegrams all received. The President and all of us have full 
confidence, and tliorouglily approve your course." How many of " all of 
us" shared in the post-tradership profits ? 



MR. BAYAIID IN THE SENATE. 291 

navy is extended. What is tlie dai-k and bloody threat 
at the close of his dispatch for, Senators ? What did lie 
mean when he asked the President to issue a proclama- 
tion declaring these citizens banditti, and that then no 
further action need be taken excejyt that which would de- 
volve tijpon him f 

" I confess to you as I read this dispatch my blood 
curdled in my veins. If it had been sent in the midst of 
strife by a man heated by the excitement of combat, 
there might have been palliation for it, because a cooling 
time would have come when his better reason would 
operate, when 'Philip sober' would have answered this 
• Philip drunk.' But this dispatch was penned in safety ; 
it Avas penned in quiet ; it was penned where there was 
nothing that threatened him, and without anything to 
cause him excitement except the apprehended loss of 
political power to the chief whom he was sent there to 
represent. 

"What character docs this officer seek to assume? 
There was Tristan I'llormite, the provost-marshal of the 
royal household, whom the genius of Scott has painted 
until he is familiar in every household. It seems to me 
that this officer has modeled himself much upon the 
morals and conduct of this hangman of roj^alty of days 
gone by. 

" Sir, I say that in a proper condition of sentiment 
with those in power he would not have been suffered to 
remain for five minutes in command at Kew Orleans. 
He has no one quality that fits him proj)erly for the duties 
of command there now. His first requisite should be 
good-will and kindness to the people, strict impartiality ; 
no threats of force, careful obedieiice to civil rule. This 
was the example he should have set as a high ofiScial, 



202 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

honored by his country, and invested with high discre- 
tionary powers ; and, as this example does not seem to 
originate with him, I want it now taught him, and taught 
so that not alone he will not forget, but that every other 
officer of the army and navy of the United States will 
learn and know that it is in the affections, in the respect 
of their fellow countrymen, and not in their fears, that 
they are to find their place of honor and of safety." 

In the same vein are the denunciations of Major 
Merrill, and many another passage of fiery scorn or fierce 
indignation in Mr. Bayard's speeches. Mr. Bayard's 
speech on the Civil Eights Bill, in the Senate, on Febru- 
ary 26, 1875, contains a masterly example of the reductio 
ad dbsurdum. The question being upon the bill to pro- 
tect all citizens in their civil and legal rights in pursuance 
of the new amendments to the Constitution, the Senator, 
after showing in a strong legal argument that the Su- 
preme Court had decided these ordinances to be manda- 
tory upon the States, and not upon the individuals in the 
States, he proceeded to call attention to the impractica- 
bility of enforcing the proposed regulations and prohibi- 
tion in the manner suggested. " Now, does it not appear 
too absurd, almost impossible, to imagine Congress gravely 
proposing that the grave federal government of our 
Ilnion shall be attending to the duties of an hotel clerk ; 
that we shall be examining into the relative advantages 
and condition of the bedrooms of an inn, or deliberating 
upon the measure of duty of the head waiter at an hotel, 
legislating so that equal enjoyment at the tahle d'hote is 
given to the guests, or supervising the railway conductor, 
and taking care by law that he assigns equally good seats 
to all the passengers, or, assuming the functions of the 
theatre manager or his usher, shall insist that he have 



MR. BAYARD IN TUE SENATE. 293 

always present in his mind the dignity and power of the 
great government of the United States. Ko other ilhis- 
tration is needed to exhibit the absurdity of this bill than 
the mere suggestion to assign duties of such a nature to 
such a government. It seems to me that when the Su- 
preme Court of the United States shall be found sitting 
in grave judgment whether A or B have had equal seats 
or equal comforts, or equal enjoyment at a hotel, or in 
their transportation, or at some theatre where their idle- 
ness and pleasure may have led them, then the posi- 
tion will be so absurd that the case will be laughed 
out of court, even if there was no other way to get 
rid of it." 

Illustrating here, as we try to do, rather the form and 
quality of his elocution than the body and texture of his 
thought and feeling, it is not needed to do more than 
refer to those many pages in his speeches in which his 
deep and sedate reflection overflows in sententious j^ara- 
graphs of gnomic thought, in comprehensive statements 
of fundamental principles and universal law, and in fine 
original summaries of complex conditions in public affairs. 
The philosophy of government is often and luminously 
expounded in these discursive moments, which seem to 
have a peculiar charm for his grave and earnest intellect. 
Even in active and exciting debate he will iiing out a 
philosophical period such as distills the very essence of a 
situation. One of the finest and most characteristic of 
these may be found in Mr. Bayard's speech on the Louisi- 
ana Beturning Board, when, in replying to Mr. Sherman's 
long tirades about atrocities to the negroes and the need 
for further "protection" to them, he said : 

"The laws of the land have given aU that human 
laws can give. They have given to the colored people — 



294 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

EQUALITY OK OPPORTUNITY. NoW, tluxt being givGll, llOW 

are yon, upon the basis of equal rights, to undertake to 
supply the deficiencies and differences with which the 
Almighty has seen fit to mark his creatures, both as races 
and as individuals ? "We all know that men start in the 
race of life equipped perhaps with equal opportunities 
of information ; it is so at flie bar ; it is so in every pur- 
suit ; but we start, how ? We start with the natural gifts 
which are not created or bestowed by statute law. They 
did not come from man, and by him they are not to be 
controlled. You might as well tell me that you could 
dwarf the intellect of a Webster to the stature of that 
of some half idiot, and say that because these grand and 
almost God-like gifts had raised the one to a position of 
Aveight where his counsel and thought swayed nations and 
senates, therefore the weak and the ignorant could, by 
some poor statute law or amendment to the Constitution, 
be raised to the level of the gifted and the strong. No, 
Mr. President, it can not be and it never will be. All 
that we can do is to give a fair chance, to give, as I said 
before, equality of opportunity to the people of this 
country, to the poor boy equally with the rich man's son, 
to the black man who comes from his hovel, or the rich 
man who emerges from his palace. They must take their 
chances in this battle of life, and, if they be deficient and 
defective, do not suppose that an act of Congress can un- 
dertake to remedy the fact. It will not be so." 

The equality of opportunity, let it be noted, is the 
limit. Eepublican government can not go any further 
in that direction, for the next step is communism, which 
requires the state to destroy the uses of opportunity by 
creating and maintaining the equality of comlitloii. Mr. 
Bayard said some noteworthy things in this connection in 



MR. BAYARD IN TUE SENATE. 295 

his speech on tlic Pacific railroads* and tlieir relation to 
the government. After remarking with surprise the 
indiifercnce of the people to these great land and money 
grants, and comparing it with the excitement about the 
salaries bill, Mr, Bayard said : 

"Mr. President, these great debts, which are being 
piled upon the toiling masses of this country in total dis- 
regard of the sufferings which are causing one universal 
groan to arise all over the land, are greatly to be de- 
plored and dreaded in their results — but still more for- 
midable is the question of the inroads upon and the over- 
throw of the great republican idea of disintegration and 
distribution of poiuer. The possession of irresponsible 
power never failed in human history to coiTupt its pos- 
sessor. Well did our forefathers know it. They knew 
that power, like jealousy, grew with what it fed upon, 
and in many modes in building up this government they 
sought to check its growth. 

" They did not intend that the individual should 
wither, but by encouraging individuality they sought to 
encourage the growth of men. They sought, not strength 
by massing weakness, that atom might protect atom, but, 
by creating the greatest number of vigorous integers, to 
make the state strong. Out of individuality grows com- 
petition ; out of consolidation grows monopoly. Hence 
their political institutions, the abolition of rank and title, 
abolition of the rule of primogeniture, an equal division 
of estates without regard to sex, the subjection of lands 
to the payment of debts, the equality of all men before 
the law, widespread suffrage, destruction of entailed 
estates, limitation upon devises, all tending to facilitate 
the distribution of wealth and power and to prevent per- 

* Senate, April 5, 1878. 



296 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

petuities. And yet the doctrine and practice of incor- 
poration was suffered to creep in, destroying as it does 
individuality, consolidating as it does all power and mak- 
ing its owners morally irresi)onsible, creating artificial 
beings who never die and whose estates are never to be 
distributed, but are perpetual. 

"Mr. President, the consequences of this may be re- 
mote, but to my eye they are certain. It is the creation 
of power without moral and legal responsibility, and that 
is fatal to any form of government under which it shall 
be encouraged or permitted to exist." 

We have already spoken of Mr. Bayard's eloquence. 
Let us close this chapter with another instance or two to 
illustrate its quality. In his speech on the Ku-Klux act 
(May 21, 1872), Mr. Bayard was referring to the need for 
brotherhood between North and South, and the ease with 
which it could be brought about, and related the follow- 
ing to the listening Senate : 

"When the war closed in the spring of 1SG5 an officer 
of the Southern army found liimseK, like thousands of 
liis. compatriots, without a dollar, on his way to his home 
and family. Not far from Atlanta he found his aged 
mother and family, people whom in 1861 he had left in 
affluence, surrounded by aU the luxury and refinement 
that inherited wealth and cultivation for generations in 
the same family can alone produce. He threw himself 
from his weary horse and entered the door of his dwell- 
ing. The aged mother, the wife, sisters, little cliildren, 
were all there. Death, which had held his harvest among 
the brave men on the field of battle and in the Northern 
prisons, had spared the weaker ones. Their suffering 
]iad been to live. They had seen not only the luxuries 
M'hich their mode of living had made habitual swept 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 297 

away by the breath of war, but even the necessaries of a 
frugal life had gone, and -^yhen my informant found these 
ladies and children, once so tenderly cared for, they had 
been living for ten days upon dried okra and salt. Tliis 
had been their sole subsistence. Unable to relieve their 
desiderate condition, he remounted his horse and rode 
back to the town of Atlanta, to solicit food to keep his 
family alive. 

" I am credibly informed there was not a head of horned 
cattle, a sheep, a pig, or chicken in that county out of the 
camp of the United States army. On his way to Atlanta 
he met a colonel of the United States army who, without 
knowing him personally, mentioned his name (historic in 
Georgia and Carolina), and inquired the way to his resi- 
dence. My informant disclosed himself to the officer, and, 
finding his purpose, told him of his condition, and accepted 
such a loan of money as enabled him to purchase from the 
United States commissary at Atlanta the necessaries of 
life for his family. I will not recount how, with energy 
and courage, he struggled with varying success to make a 
living for those who were dependent on him, but the elec- 
tion of Bullock and the appointment of his State officials 
forced him to abandon the practice of law, where merit 
and ability could not compete with corrupt favoritism. 

"About this time he wrote to a friend in the North a 
letter descriptive of the condition of Southern men like 
himself, honestly endeavoring to act as faithful citizens of 
the government of the United States, and finding no 
confidence exhibited in their good intentions, but, on the 
other hand, rebuff and discredit, while thieves, camp-fol- 
lowers, and ignorant and vicious negroes were placed in 
power over them. This letter found its way into print in 
some of the Korthern papers, among others, I believe, in 



298 LIFE OF TnOMAS F. BAYARD. 

the 'New York Tribune' A few weeks after tlie letter 
was written my informant received by mail a letter post- 
marked Boston, Massacliusetts, lie opened it, and found 
inclosed a check for $1,000 and a few lines from the 
writer, stating he had seen the letter referred to, and de- 
sired, as a Northern man, to aid a fellow citizen in a distant 
State struggling in such bitter adversity. The writer's 
name was totally unknown to him, and he thought it must 
be a mistake or a cruel hoax. He submitted the check to 
a banker, who at once informed him it was good for its 
full amount. He, however, considering there must be 
some mistake, wrote to Boston, stating the arrival of the 
letter with the check, but his fear that his motive in writ- 
ing which drew forth the remittance had been misunder- 
stood ; that he might have been supposed to be what was 
known as a ' Union man ' in the Southern acceptation of 
that term, or a repentant rebel disposed to gain favor with 
the successful party by condenming his own past course. 
He told him that he was neither; that he had been an 
original and conscientious believer in the right and duty 
of secession in 1861, and had no regrets, except for his 
failure ; but that he accepted his fate and was ready to 
keep faith with the government which had conquered. 

"A reply from Boston to this letter assured him that 
the writer had earnestly advocated the prosecution of the 
war, and during the war would have held him an enemy, 
but that peace had come, and he now sought to make him 
a friend, and took this as a natural mode of doing it, and 
begged him to keep and use the money. I need not say 
how much the heart of this Southerner was touched, but 
he was a man of honor, and, though sorely pressed for 
money, felt in looking over the entire field of his affairs 
that even with the $1,000 he was greatly in debt, and, in 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 299 

fact, insolvent, lie felt it was his duty, as it was Lis 
right, to avail himself of the bankrupt law of the United 
States, and start afresh, after giving up all he possessed, 
which consisted chiefly of the farm and homestead which 
sheltered his family. lie therefore wrote again to the 
good man in Boston, telling him these facts, and declining 
his proffered loan under the circumstances. The mail soon 
brought a request to know the precise condition of his affairs. 
He made it out in exact detail, and his statement disclosed 
debts several thousand dollars in excess of his assets. 

" In prompt return of mail a letter reached him, with a 
check for the amount of his needs in full. His debts were 
paid, his energies restored, his family retained in their 
home, the day of his adversity had passed, and prosperity 
met him with pleasant smile and open hands. The money 
so lent by the Boston merchant to a total stranger in a 
Southern State, one whose face he had never seen, whose 
opinions, social and political, he had ever opposed, has 
been returned ; but this is the least part of the transaction. 
There is a debt which will never be paid so long as life- 
blood warms that Southerner's heart — the debt of love, of 
gratitude, of friendship, wliich binds him and his kindred 
with ties stronger than iron to that Boston merchant, and 
all who bear his name or are of his kindred. The name 
of the Northern man is borne by the son of the Southern 
man. It will be a household name that shall couple those 
two families in true ties of friendship while their names 
shall last. Should danger or trouble assail the man of the 
North or his kindred, he can count upon the ready hand 
of his Southern brother to defend him — a defense rendered 
without money and without price ; the cheap defense that 
human love gives without reckoning, never so glad as 
when giving it. 



300 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

" Why should not these two families of Massachusetts 
and Georgia be allowed to typify the relations of the 
Northern and the Southern people ? You may be sure, 
Senators, that like causes will produce like effects. It is 
in your power. Shall it be done? In justice to his 
State and to the people of all America, I am called upon 
to give the name of the Boston man who set this wise 
and noble example to his fellow countrymen. It was 
Daniel Denny, the Boston merchant, whose wisdom of 
the heart knew how to conquer men more effectually than 
he who has won the bloodiest garland gained in battle. 
He overcame enmity by kindness — the great law of love, 
whose divine Expositor was born on earth eighteen hun- 
dred and seventy-two years ago, but whose teachings seem 
so little heeded in these latter days. 

" Within a few weeks Mr. Denny has gone to his hon- 
ored grave, but his good name shall not be forgotten. 

' Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.' 

" I saw and felt in my personal intercourse in Georgia 
the kindly influences which his trust in human nature 
had created. 

" I remember well this gentleman telling me of a meet- 
ing of those who had been Confederate officers shortly 
after the occurrence which I have related. They were 
impoverished ; they were sore with many things that had 
visited them in the way of domestic and political afHic- 
tion. They had much to condemn and little to praise. 
In the North they found but little to praise, and little, 
apparently, to thank the government for. While they 
were relating instances of their hardships, this gentleman 
arose and told this story in simplicity and truth ; and he 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 301 

told me that among these aiigiy and sore men, wlio hud 
breasted battle many a time and bore upon their persons 
the scars of conflict, there were tears soft as woman's shed 
at this one touch of human kindness : 

' What can war but endless wars still breed ? ' " 

In a still finer strain than this, to our thinking, is the 
peroration to Mr. Bayard's recent speech in favor of re- 
storing Fitz-John Porter to his place in the army.* 
" Something," he remarked, " has been said about his 
receiving the pay and allowances of his rank. Upon my 
soul, I think it is scarcely worth mentioning. It seems 
to me that the great act is the act of restoration, and that 
this incident, the payment of money that was due to him 
fairly under the law, should go with it. If it be true, and 
who can doubt it is true, that for fifteen years this man 
has sat with a crushed and aching heart asking for justice 
at the hands of his government, what money can com- 
pensate him ? Who among us would for money's sake 
stand for one week with that dreadful, slow, unmoving 
finger of scorn pointed at us, conscious all the while of its 
cruel and bitter injustice ? If you unbolted your treasury 
and poured its contents at his feet, it would be nothing to 
him as compared to that which he has suffered. It really 
seems to me this point is insignificant and small beyond 
notice. 

" In the course of this debate I have heard it said, 
* Wait until you hear from the people on this subject.' 
Well, Mr. President, I hope we will hear from the j^co- 
ple ; but before we hear from the people I want them to 
hear from me. I am not M^aiting for the echo of popular 
applause or condemnation. I think no greater insult can 

* March 8, 18S0. 



302 LIFE OF THOMAS F. BAYARD. 

be offered to the people of America than to tell them tliat 
you suppose they will condemn a public man who tells the 
truth and endeavors to do justice. Is it service to the 
people to distrust them and conceal from them your real 
judgments ? Oh, sir, there rang out in the ages long ago 
from the lips of the aged patriarch in the depth of his 
sorrows, ' Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him ' ; 
and shall not we trust in those we profess to serve ? Shall 
we not trust in those who we say are virtuous, honest, and 
intelligent ? Shall w^e not vote and speak according to 
the conscience that has been jjlaced in the breast of every 
man among us ? This country of ours is one of the lead- 
ing nations of the world, and little minds are not fit to 
govern it. If this government should fail and go down 
amid the tears of those who love constitutional liberty and 
republican freedom, close to the root of its cause of failure 
will be found the fact that her representative and public 
men disguised their honest opinions and failed to tell the 
people the truth, as they knew it to exist." 

This sort of speaking can not help but be effective, 
and we know that it is so. A narrative is extant of the 
impression made by a speech of Mr. Bayard's, at a small 
town in Eastern Maryland, in the last days of the cam- 
paign of 18Y6. " We can not pretend," says the imper- 
fect account, "to give an extended synopsis of even that 
address, but we can not forbear to print one great utter- 
ance that fell from his lips. In words so simple and calm 
he said it, too, that the audience sat hushed and still. 
' When I look at the way in which unprincipled men,' 
he said, ' have outraged the laws, the trust of the great 
American people, the confidence of the better men of 
their own party, it docs not make me angry, but it makes 
mc sad, so sad.'' This was said with a pathos and a sud- 



MR. BAYARD IN THE SENATE. 303 

den overclouding of his face that was h'ghtcd all up with 
energy but a moment before. lie looked tired of the 
contest, and the people could not break the spell with 
applauding. The spell that fell on the audience was the 
outgrowth of that mesmeric influence that emanates from 
some men born to lead. . . . For a moment after he had 
taken his seat the spell remained, and then it was broken, 
and pent-up feelings found utterance in a deafening 
greeting." 

This is eloquence, and the nai've honesty of the im- 
perfect descrij^tion makes one regret he had not heard 
it with his own ears. It seems more fitting to conclude 
this brief outline of Mr. Bayard's public life with this 
little narrative than to prolong it with eulogies not to his 
taste or parallels which might reflect upon political rivals. 
Such as the man is, his works, and, in some measure, his 
ways, have been frankly and fully presented. It is such 
a character as must give all intelligent persons new con- 
fidence in the stability and permanence of our institutions 
when they reflect that Mr. Bayard is one of our foremost 
statesmen, and a man upon whom the hopes of very many 
are concentrated, that he may become in the near future 
the leader of the republic backward from perilous paths 
to the better ways of old. 



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